Greed
by PastSelf
Summary: "Six awoke from a nightmare and found herself in another one." A narrative retelling of the events in Little Nightmares as Six delves deeper and deeper into the maw. Strong elements from the DLC and JT Music. I own nothing except for the cover art.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

**You don't look like you belong here**

**Did you pinch yourself to see**

**If you'd wake up from a nightmare**

**Or could you still be asleep?**

**\- 'Hungry For Another One', by JT Music**

Six awoke from a nightmare and found herself in another one. This new nightmare, however, wasn't really new at all. Six remembered dreaming it before.

She was lying in a suitcase as if it were a bed, wearing nothing but an old yellow raincoat to keep out the chill. The room she lay in was cold and damp, like a metal cell, and the ceiling arched so high above her head that she could hardly see it. As Six stood up in her suitcase, she could feel the floor pitch ever so slightly to one side, and then roll over to the other.

_I wonder if I'm on a boat_, she thought.

Six looked up, trying to see where the scant bit of light was shining from, but whatever crack ushered it in was too high up to make out clearly. Whatever its source, the light was welcoming, an 'out-of-doors' sort of light, pale and thin, doing its best to survive in the midst of this harsh, dark environment.

_Just like me_, Six thought.

Six had dreamt this nightmare before, and just like in other times she hopped off the suitcase, her bare feet landing with a slap into a puddle on the floor. The cold startled Six. _I am dreaming I can feel the wet_, she thought. _What a strange dream this is._

Before she could dwell any further upon the strangeness of the dream, or its familiarity, the little girl became aware of a gnawing pinch inside. She examined herself to try and discover what it was.

_Not hunger_, she thought, _but something like it._

If Six had been older, she might have coined the term wanderlust or homesickness, even though those words hardly described the feeling. A yearn, a burning urge was growing inside her the longer she thought about it – a desire to go into the darkness and see what was beyond. Was it curiosity? Perhaps, but not exactly. Six didn't want to leave just for the sake of seeing what would out there, and it wasn't hunger which drove her to leave. But something deeper, something more poignant and lustful stirred her to move, delving into the darkness, drawing her deeper into the nightmare.

Before she had gone very far, Six realized that the darkness was too thick to see through, even for such acute eyes as hers. I wish I had a light, she thought, and then she found, in her grasp, a lighter, perfectly sized for her small hand. With a flick of her thumb a flame sparked and the darkness, for a moment, was defeated.

_I wonder if that's how this dream works_, Six thought. _By wishing._

Six tried this theory immediately, wishing hard for wings so she could fly. But, alas, wishes inside the nightmare seemed only to grant small things like lighters to those who wished.

_Perhaps if I were bigger, my thoughts would have bigger power_, she thought, and brushed it aside for now.

As she walked along the darkened metal passage, Six could sense creatures skittering in the darkness just out of sight. She tried extending her lighter, but the creatures seemed determined not to let the light touch them, staying stubbornly outside the range of her glow.

There was a lamp near the end of the corridor, nearly as tall as the girl herself, and Six touched the lighter to its wick. The lamp caught fire and began to glow brightly with the yellow flame. In its light, Six could make out a metal hatch set into the wall. Even though it was tightly set, Six thought she remembered it opening before. She wondered if it would open again.

Grasping the long handle with both hands, Six pulled as hard as she could. To her glee, the hatch began to open, the hinges at the top assisting her and pulling the hatch the rest of the way open after it reached the halfway point. After catching her breath, Six crawled through.

The shaft inside was narrow, even for Six, and she needed to crouch to fit. The darkness seemed to have no trouble fitting, though, and Six flashed with her lighter to dissuade it from coming too close. Every so often a branching shaft would open up, sometimes dripping water on the hood of her raincoat, but Six stayed on the branch she started on, somehow convinced that her way was the right way.

The shaft ended abruptly and Six jumped down into an enormous, empty room. There was a wall on her left, but the right side reached into the depths of infinity. As she went forward, the left wall dropped away and that side also stretched into nothingness. Six's eyes scanned everything, examining the gray depths to either side and the misty shapes of enormous chains in the darkness, pipes with nothing coming in or out of them, and a dense fog overshadowing everything else.

And again, there was familiarity.

Even though everything around was gargantuan, before Six was a staircase exactly her size. _I wonder if I built it when I dreamed this before_, Six thought, although she could not remember doing such a thing. Putting her hand on the handrail, she began to climb, breathing deep breaths of the musty, damp air, and pulling her raincoat closer about her chest.

The staircase ended and the walls closed in again. Six pulled out her lighter as the darkness fell back into place. The glimmer of her light shone off the walls and off the water, but it did not shine in one place. Curious, Six delved into the nook and found an interesting sight.

A china doll with a white face and painted clothing stared back at her. Though the room became no more chill, Six's heart seemed to freeze in her chest. The doll, although beautiful and delicately painted, stirred a fear inside her that she had never felt before. The doll reminded her of another dream, a more terrible dream, with a woman who ruled the darkness. That painted face, like the mask the woman wore. The clothes like her dresses. The hollow eyes, both the same.

In that moment, Six's fear turned to hate and she picked up the doll, throwing it as far as she could away from herself. It shattered, and a darkness spilled out, like black grains of sand thrown into the wind. They spiraled away and Six could have sworn she had heard a chime and few scant notes of a song floating in the darkness, but they were gone before she could tell for sure. The doll lay shattered on the ground, the shards of pottery small and dull.

Her heart thumping, Six ran from the doll's shattered remains, her anger reverting to fear. She averted her eyes as if by looking back she would cause the thing to reassemble and follow her. Anything might be possible in a nightmare.

The way she ran down ended in a boarded up doorway and Six's heart nearly stopped, thinking that she had somehow trapped herself. But no, one of the boards had already been pulled loose and Six crouched through, almost sliding in her haste to get away from the cursed object.

It was only a doll, Six tried to console herself, breathing heavily and crouching behind the doorframe. Only a silly little china doll. Nothing to worry about. No way it could touch her. Harmless and in shattered pieces. She had destroyed it.

Hadn't she?

Six looked back through the gap she had climbed through, concealing an inward shudder. What if the doll was back? What if it was angry and following her? What if—

But no. Only china splinters met her eyes, glimmering darkly in the pale light. Six allowed her fear to seep away and rose to her feet, putting the steel corridor behind her and turning to the new room she had fled to so readily.

Wood board floors. A bed. Leaking ceiling. Pots collecting water on the floor. A large door with a peephole. In any other place, this description might have fit that of an old cottage that a friendly but poor giant used to live in, but Six knew better than to believe in fairytales. This room was a cell, like many of the other rooms she had visited in the dream. The light streaming in through the door's peephole was blocked for a moment and Six froze, her mind going back to the giant idea and wondering if he was coming home to eat her up. But a moment later the light was back and all Six had to remember the shadow by was the pounding of her heart.

There was a chair hanging from the ceiling and Six examined it for a moment, trying to see what was keeping it up there. Was it held with rope or simply levitating? After attempting in vain to see its restraints, Six plunged deeper into the room.

_I should stop being surprised by what I find here_, she chided silently. _It's all a dream, after all. Nothing is really what it seems to be._

Climbing up on the bed and dropping through the little window brought her to another room of the same make, except more barren. The mattress had no bed to seat it, only the cold floor, and no blankets covered its nakedness. Twin slippers, almost as large as Six herself, slumped beside the bed as if unsure whether to go to sleep or stay awake. A single chair sat in the center of the room, and above it, toes reaching down as if to touch its surface, were the feet of a tall, thin man, every feature above his knees concealed in shadow.

Six was surprised that she was not astonished at this sight. She should probably have been frightened, she speculated, but this sight did not startle her. Perhaps, like everything else so far, she had dreamed it before. Or maybe everything else in this dream was so bizarre and staggering that something as natural as death was reassuring.

"Hello?" she whispered up into the darkness where she was sure the man's face must be. After some time, she stopped waiting for an answer and ducked her head, shuffling towards the far end of the room.

The door handle was too far away, even when she jumped, so Six unwillingly made her way back to the hanging man, clasping her hands together.

"Sir," she called, her voice still barely rising above a whisper, "I need to take your chair. I need it to get to the door. I hope you don't mind."

Still no answer came and Six took that as a good sign. As she placed her hands on the rough wooden surface of the chair, she caught sight of a letter lying unopened on the ground like a white flower crushed into the earth.

_I would read it if I could_, Six determined, _but I don't think I can read. I think I'm too young_.

Six dragged the chair over and leaped for the door handle. It dipped and the door swung open, carrying Six into the next room.

It was more of a corridor, she found, and the boarded floor had been torn up in some places. A dark puddle of what looked like ink was pooled in one spot and Six made sure to skirt it carefully as she advanced.

**…**

_What a strange place to put a refrigerator_, Six thought, looking up at the refrigerator. But then again, in a dream no place is strange to put a refrigerator. She followed the inky handprints on the sides and tugged at the door. As it swung open, an alien movement met her eye. Before she could blink, a strange gray shadow fled from the confines of the refrigerator and squeezed into a crack on the wall. Six, without a second's hesitation, followed it.

The crack led to a shaft, much like the one she had crawled through at the beginning of her journey, but this one was not so long. Six could see a room at the end of it. Soon she was there, blinking at the strange creature she discovered inside.

At first glance, the creature looked rather like a mushroom, its pointed cap making up what seemed to be its head. Its warped, stunted body was smaller even than Six's diminutive figure, but it had long, trembling fingers that seemed to be covered in black paint.

The creature was queer, it was true, but as it trembled in front of the unlit lamp, Six felt a sudden and inexplicable pity for the thing, rather the way a child would have for a baby doll left out in a storm. She crept nearer with her lighter and let the licking flame catch the wick. The creature stopped trembling and held out its hands to the blaze as if warming itself.

Six felt another prick at her heart, this one more acute, and circled around the little fire toward the creature. It seemed to look at her warily as she approached. In a moment, Six was close enough to touch the hairs on its cone-like head and brush them down. The creature shivered, but then appeared to relax. Six bent down and took the thing up in her arms, wrapping them around it as if it had been a stuffed bear, letting her cheek rest on its musty-smelling fur. The thing dangled in her arms for a moment, and for that time both were utterly oblivious to the room about them, both only conscious of the fact that for now, at least, neither was alone. The loneliness both had unknowingly felt was assuaged and when Six drew back she knew that the awkward one-sided hug had made her feel a little bit better.

"What's your name?" she asked the creature. It placed its little hands on its dirty white chest. "Yes, you. What's your name?"

The creature's head wagged back and forth as if scanning the floor for some unknown object. It walked in a shambling sort of scuffle toward the back of the room, dipped its fingers in a dark puddle, and began to draw with its sticky black hands on the wall. Assisted by the glow of her lighter, Six was able to read the word:

**No me**

So I can read after all, she thought. At least a little.

"Nome?" she asked. "You're a Nome? Just like I'm a Six?"

The Nome pointed at the girl, and then at itself.

"Nome." Six patted its head, petting its long head hairs. "I wish I could stay with you all night long." Her stroking became thoughtful. "But I can't. I have to go find something. I don't know what."

The Nome pulled away and trotted back to the wall. Giving its hands another black coat, it began to scribble again. Six stood up and watched as the Nome scrawled out, in thick black lines, the figure of a man, strangely proportioned, with small legs but long, gangling arms and horrible long fingers. The Nome finished and pointed at the grotesque figure.

"Yes, I see," said Six, shivering a bit as if the air had turned suddenly chill. "Is he up ahead?"

The Nome dipped its head a little, but turned back to the drawing. With a meaningful look at Six, the Nome streaked his hand across the man's face, blacking out where the eyes should be. It pointed at the figure again.

"The long-handed man can't see?" asked Six.

The Nome simply sat down and stared up at its picture, obviously admiring its work of art.

"You have been very helpful to me," said Six. "I wish I could take you with me, but you're probably safer here."

The Nome continued to ignore her, wrapping its thin arms around its scrawny knees.

"Well…" Six hesitated, trying to think of a proper farewell while backing away toward the exit. "Goodbye, then. I hope the long-armed man doesn't find you here."

The Nome was still sitting in front of the picture when she ducked back out again.

_What a strange creature_, Six thought as she began to climb the racks inside the open refrigerator, using it as a ladder to get to the broken upper level above. _It seemed afraid of me, at first, but it liked me as soon as I helped it and hugged it. Perhaps it's like a baby in that way. Or a baby animal, imprinting on what it sees. It was rather like a child in the way it acted. Strange, but wise enough for this place. I'm glad it decided to help me._

…_What was that sound?_

Six looked up and immediately wished that she had not. She had forgotten – for a moment – that the dream she was in was a nightmare, but with the glance at the ceiling she remembered. For up above, hanging from the black pipes above her head were long, thin black things, like oily bananas ready for harvest. As Six shrank back a few of the things began to drop down beside her and she could see them clearly. Leeches. Thick, ugly, black leeches. Without a further thought, Six began to flee.

There were several gaps in the floorboards on this level and Six found it necessary to leap over dark, plunging holes or dodge around shady-looking planks with cracks running through their middles. The slurp and squish of the black leeches followed her, spurring Six to greater speeds.

The next room she entered had a closed door on the other end and Six hastily jumped for the lever on the wall, praying that the leeches would not follow so far. She hardly waited for the door to be open before jumping down and skidding through, not daring to turn around lest the oozing worms should catch her.

But no, in the next room here they were again, dangling from the pipes above. Six lurched forward and began to pull on the planks boarding up the next room, trying not to think of the leeches' sleek, oily skin and how soft it would be as it wrapped around her legs, taking her down to the ground. Would it hurt if they caught her? Or would they simply wrap around her neck until she couldn't breathe anymore?

The boards snapped loose, throwing Six to the ground, and she hastened to duck beneath the remaining ones, fleeing to the adjoining chamber.

It was dark inside. That was the first thing she noticed. But the second thing was that there seemed to be no leeches. Squinting, she could make out a dim figure standing before her in the dark, a mere silhouette in the scant light.

"It's you," she cried, recognizing the Nome. "Or perhaps there are many of you. Please, could you—"

But with a single step forward, the boards beneath her feet broke. The Nome skittered away in alarm and Six was left to plunge down into the depths of darkness.

In a second or two, she landed in a foul-smelling black puddle. Feeling an overwhelming fear begin to creep in around her, Six fumbled with her lighter, ushering out a bright yellow light that shook in her trembling hand.

But then she froze.

Surrounding her were twenty or more of the black leeches. Who knew if those things had eyes, or ears, or any sort of sensory input at their disposal, but however it was, they could sense her. They reared up and turned toward her like dozens of oily black snakes examining their conjuror. As one, they dropped and began to squish their way toward her, inching through the shadows to reach her.

Six's heart jumped into her throat and she slogged her way out of the puddle, trying to run, but the black liquid tugged at her feet, begging her to go more slowly. She fought against it and soon was free, running to where the gleam of a door was suggested.

The leeches leaped at her, falling over themselves, twining and oozing all over each other as they stretched for her legs. The door was shut, but Six pushed it hard and the whole thing was knocked over, the wooden slats becoming a ramp into the next room.

The rooms began to blend together as she fled, putting as much distance as possible between her and the slimy monsters. Finally, as her heartbeat started to resume its normal pace, Six realized that she was no longer being pursued. She sighed and sank against a nearby crate, her knees pulled up to her chest, burying her face inside her yellow hood. When she felt brave enough, she lifted her head and looked at the place surrounding her.

It was not another closed room like before, but rather a concourse going upwards into seeming infinity. Up above, when Six craned her neck, she could see several bridges leading to upper levels, their silhouettes growing mistier and mistier the farther away they went.

Suddenly, Six became aware that she had been listening to a grinding, scraping sound for some time now and had only just noticed it. Stepping a little farther away and leaning back against a guardrail, Six looked upward at the nearest bridge, and her heart nearly stopped with terror.

All she could see of the figure was an arm, grotesquely long and thin, dragging what looked like a cage behind him. _It's him_, she thought. _The long-armed man._

Even though she knew he could not possibly see her from such a distance, if he could see at all, Six felt like cowering against the guardrail. Just the sight of the man had caused her blood to chill and she dreaded the thought of coming into closer proximity with him.

_I hope he stays far away from me._

Six's hand brushed iron. The wall, which for some reason Six remembered with very vivid clarity, rose before her in gray dominance. The only break in its smooth, sleek surface was a window, high above. Six remembered in a sort of déjà vu staring up at that same window and longing with the same pinching sort of feel that she felt when she was first starting her journey that a ladder would descend, or that the window would magically begin to slide downward so she could continue forward. Had she been here before? Probably, but she had been forced to stop, halted by the massive, unmoving mountain of steel. But this time, something was a little different.

A rope, made of bedclothes or something of like material, swung down the wall, tied hard to the bars at the top. Six touched it as if making sure it was real, and then tugged, testing its firmness.

_This wasn't here before_, she wondered. _But then again, was I here before either? How do I remember this place?_

Placing her hands and feet deep in the fabric, Six began to ascend.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**I tell myself it's all a dream**

**And the monsters are not all they seem**

**\- 'Hungry for Another One' by JT Music**

Six jumped for the lever, trying hard not to put her foot into the hole in the center of one of the toilet paper rolls as she did so. Twisting an ankle wouldn't be fun and she didn't want to turn back, not now that she had come farther than she ever had before. The stench of the surrounding toilets closed up her throat and made her want to gag, but she suppressed the urge, pulling down on the lever with all her weight.

The lights crackled as they sputtered out and Six let go of the lever, dropping to the floor and squeezed through the bars which, the moment before, had been sizzling with electricity, but now were quiet as iron was supposed to be. The lights creaked as if reminding Six that the lever would come unstuck at any moment. The little girl took the hint and fled through the room as fast as her legs could carry her, only catching scant glances of her surroundings as she went.

Playthings. A little train track. A merry-go-round. Blocks.

_I suppose a child played here_, Six thought to herself, but even though she knew she had gone no further than the window before in her dream, the child's room was too familiar for her never to have seen it before. She would have liked to stop and ponder, but the clicking of the lights prompted her on.

Six slipped through the bars at the opposite side of the room not a moment too soon. The second her hands left the bars they began to hum and the lightbulbs ignited again_. Whatever child once lived here must have been quite unhappy, trapped in there all alone,_ Six thought, peering back into the child's room. _They are not here now, though, so perhaps they escaped in the end._

She dwelled on this thought for a while as she advanced. The corridor was filled with many doors, but Six ignored them. Their handles were far too far out of reach. Only the door at the end stood open, and it was toward this that Six went.

Through the doorway, into another chamber, went Six. She had very little time to look about at her surroundings – hanging cages, mattress against the wall, screens, and several strange lumpy forms in the middle of the room – before a bright, piercing light shone directly upon her. Six raised her hands in front of her face, stumbling backwards as the shining form of an eye printed its afterimage into her brain. She could feel her skin shriveling, baking, burning in the harsh glare of the eye's light. Her feet seemed to crystalize into leaden lumps and she struggled backwards. The shadow of a column touched her like cool water running over a burn and Six submerged herself in its welcoming pool.

_I thought darkness was unkind_, Six thought, panting. _But now I see that light can be just as cruel._

The beam turned away from her position and Six was able to peek around the column and see what had harmed her.

There was a carved eyeball set into the wood above the doorways leading out of the room. As Six watched, the eye swiveled, casting a radiating glow across the floor. Where it looked, the floor was baptized in light. Where it turned away was shadow, and there, Six felt, it was safe to pass.

The strange clumps Six had seen before were illuminated in the deadly light and she could now make out the curve of a leg, seemingly formed of dust, or arms twisted upwards to protect a small, fracturing head.

_More children like me_, thought Six. _Only not so lucky. I suppose they were trying to find their way out. Too bad they were caught here. Otherwise they might have found me and we could have escaped together._

The eye swung back toward Six and she ducked back again, biting her lip and thinking hard. After the first initial shock of being almost turned to stone or solid dust, the eyeball wasn't really that scary after all. It shouldn't be too hard to trick. After all, there were shadows near the feet of the doorframes. _If only the other children had thought of going _toward_ the eye, then maybe they wouldn't have been caught so easily_, Six speculated. As soon as the eye moved its glare away from her position, Six ducked and sprinted forward, flattening herself against the closed doors and inching sideways beneath the eyeball. Its glare passed in front of her, nearly dipping her toes in light, but she curled them inward, standing pigeon-toed to avoid being burned.

After some sidestepping and scrambling, Six made it to the other side of the room. The eye's beam was blocked by what seemed to be a stack of metal cabinets. Six leaned against one of the drawers and found it stuck shut and immovable, most likely soldered shut by the hot beam of the watching eye.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember the last time she had felt safe – really, truly safe – but nothing came to mind. Six remembered how her wish for light had summoned the lighter, and now she wished again, screwing her eyes shut in concentration. No words were enough to describe that poignant wish, so she channeled her feelings and emotions into that nameless desire and waited for the magic to work the rest.

A chittering noise made Six open her eyes. Staring upward she caught a glimpse of a Nome turn and slip away into the depths of a cage with no backing and vanish into the wall.

_My wish was answered_, Six thought in delight and began to climb the rungs formed from the fused-shut cabinet drawer handles and crisscrossed cage bars. After some climbing and jumping, Six found herself diving into the open cage and crawling through the tunnel behind it. A moment later she dropped into a secret room and stared once again at one of the strange creatures that haunted the place. She stretched out her hands and the Nome winced. "I'm not going to hurt you," Six whispered, trying to make her voice as soft as possible. "Won't you come here?"

Trembling, the Nome reached out and touched her hand with its own grimy one. Six smiled and gathered up the creature in her arms, feeling it go limp with pleasure as she hugged it.

Who knew how long the two of them spent enjoying each other's company, curled together as if dreading to be apart? Who knows how long Six held the Nome, not wanting to let go, stroking its long head hairs and letting her weariness seep away? Certainly not either of them, and even when Six did let go, the Nome cuddled close to her side as if wishing the embrace had lasted longer and that it could be in her arms again.

The Nome toddled after Six as she walked over to examine the framed picture leaning against the wall, holding her hand as she tried to decide whether the picture was of a pair of plump Nomes sitting down or a pair of houses close together. She decided, at last, that they were more like houses.

The time came, at last, to depart, and the Nome tried to follow her out of the room, but Six shooed him away. "It's not safe out there," she told it. "It would be better for you to stay here. Do you understand?"

The thing did not seem to understand, for it raised up its arms like a child begging to be picked up, but Six refused, climbing back out the way she had come and feeling rather sad as she did so.

_I hate to leave_, she thought, _but it is better this way. Better that the Nome stay there in comfort than come with me and be captured or seen by that evil eye. I can hardly protect myself, much less anyone else. No, it is much better for me to stay alone, at least for now. If I were bigger and stronger, then perhaps things would be different._

…

The gloom of the place settled in quickly after Six left the Nome and the darkness seemed more fierce than ever. _At least now I know a meaning for the darkness_, Six thought to herself, glancing down from her perch on the second level at the evil eye. _Darkness is there to cover things that should not be seen, or that wishes to stay unknown_. _Light is there to shine the truth, even if that truth is better left unseen. Both have their places and both can be dangerous, but now I see the need for darkness._

Six's steps became softer as she trod through an open door and found her path muffled by carpet. She wiggled her toes in it, stooping over and rubbing her hands through it, enjoying its softness. The door closed shut behind her and Six jumped, standing upright and pulling out her lighter, wishing she had not stopped to enjoy the sensation.

The room she had come into, Six now realized, was lined with beds. Not adult beds like the ones she had seen before in the cells, but child-sized beds with rails along to sides to keep sleeping children from rolling off, and a slumbering child slept in each. Toy boxes filled with blocks stood by the nearest bed, and the whispering sigh of dreams shushed from parted lips.

_I wonder if they are dreaming of me the same way I am dreaming of them_, Six thought, and took a muffled step closer to the nearest dreaming child.

The creak of a door made Six freeze in her steps and the silhouette of a dark figure in the opening doorway by the adjoining wall made her heart stop beating. Her legs, with no prior recollection of any order from her brain, began moving her rapidly forward and she slid underneath the bed, extinguishing the light she held. There was a knothole in the chest she hunkered behind and through it she peered at this sight:

No longer drawn in ink, the long-armed man stood between the beds, his face cloaked in darkness. Six could hear him grinding his teeth like an old man smacking his gums and the creak of his neck as he twisted it from side to side, seeming to look over the children. A smell came from him like that of lint and smoke and year-old dried-out filth that hovered over him like subtle, shady cologne. His hands groped from side to side, arranging a blanket here, touching a face there, and his feet made the floorboards creak, their stumpy legs shuffling them along the uncarpeted path. He moved his face toward her position and at first Six thought he wore a blindfold, but then could see that his eyes were simply covered by long, tired wrinkles that sagged almost to his nose, keeping him permanently in the dark.

_His ears must be quite keen to know where the children are_, Six thought, her mind still inexplicably working even through her terror. _But what the Nome told me is true: he doesn't appear to see a thing. If I stay on the carpet, perhaps I can move quietly enough to get away._

With this thought, Six began to sneak away from her hiding spot, never letting her eyes leave the threat before her. The next bed in the set had no opening for her beneath it and Six gathered up her courage to go around as quickly as she could. Before her strength of will was gathered, however, Six heard a noise behind her that shattered her resolve completely. She cringed against the leg of the bed as the long-armed man began to hiss in a cracking whisper the fragments of what might have been in another mouth and another land a nursery rhyme or a song.

"Little lambs, tender meat… baaing lambs, food to eat… cracking jaws, firelight… resting for the feast tonight." The man chanted on over the sleeping children, his long fingers popping as he clenched them, cheeks smacking juicily as they stretched, displaying brown, rotting teeth. "Little lambs, tender meat…" he began again, but Six didn't stop to hear more. Before he could continue she was running, running for her life and sanity for the far door, afraid that at any moment she would hear that horrible long neck twisting toward her and hear the swish of the long arms grasping in her direction, the crack of knuckles as the fingers twined around her waist.

She hardly knew where she went, scrambling like a rat into cover and then climbing like a monkey out of reach. It wasn't until she was concealed by a vent that she realized that she might just be safe, but then she remembered the man's probing arms and imagined them plunging in after her. Even though she knew they could not possibly reach her there, she did not stop until the vent ended and dumped her, trembling, on the other side.

_He didn't see me_, Six reassured herself, watching a rat scurry, squeaking, out of sight. _The long-armed man never saw me. He can't know where I am. I shouldn't be so frightened. It's all just a dream._

With that consoling thought, Six stood upright. Even though her hands still shook, she felt just a little bit better. She hopped off the box she stood on and landed on the floor. _I suppose I should follow the rat_, she thought to herself. _Perhaps he can lead me out of here._

This plan fell apart a few seconds later as Six suddenly felt an acute pain in her middle, her stomach growling as if threatening to eat itself alive. She hunched over, groaning and gasping, her heart singing in her ears.

_What is wrong with me?_ she wondered, the first bout passing somewhat and letting her straighten. The feeling was akin to hunger, but stronger than anything she had ever felt before, tearing at her midsection and crying with pain.

Before she had gone more than thirty steps, the feeling was back, but even stronger, bowing her knees toward the ground. A three-toned song beat in her ears and black spots danced before her eyes, shining like the so-called 'light at the end of the tunnel'.

It ended, finally, and Six looked about, desperately searching for something to eat before her hunger devoured herself whole. She could see bars in the top part of the wall, and through that a place that looked like it might be some drab excuse for an eating area. _But I can't get there_, Six thought desperately. _Not in this state, at least._

Up a short flight of stairs took her eye-level with the bars, and through it she spied the small, dark figure of a boy cloaked in the darkness, his eyes sunken and hopeless. He stared back at her, but no trace of surprise or any other emotion showed on his face.

"Please," Six was able to murmur, but then the pangs were upon her again, worse than the two other times combined. She could not raise her head, clamped in a perpetual stooping position, a dark shadow before her eyes hissing the words 'must eat, must eat' in an ever-going chant. "Help me," Six tried to whisper, but all that came out was a gasp: "H… h… h…"

Something flew past her head and landed before her feet. Still hunched over like a little old lady, Six grabbed at it. She had no idea whether what she held was bread or meat, but she sunk her teeth into it gladly, devouring the whole thing in a panicked glut that reached obscenity in its fierceness, shoving the food into her mouth in horrible, terrific bites that would get the food to her stomach as quickly as possible. Anything, anything to satiate the terrible hunger that gnawed at her insides. Anything to quench the madness.

In a moment, the darkness before her eyes subsided and Six became aware that the horrible hunger had gone. She unfolded herself, straightening back into a standing position. Her hands burned with a pinching sort of pain and she realized that she must have bitten them in her greed. Rubbing them on her raincoat she turned around. The boy behind the bars was standing on the stool and watching her with keen interest, his eyes looking more alive than the rest of him. His hand clenched the bars that separated them and he rested his head against them.

"It happens to all of us," he said in a hoarse whisper. "All of us who are chosen. A moment later and you wouldn't have cared what you had eaten." He gave something like a laugh, but too humorless and dry to have borne that name.

"Chosen?" Six whispered back, coming forward to clasp the bars she could reach. The boy squatted so he was about eye-level.

"We kids get separated out," he said. "Some to be guests, and some to be…" He shuddered, unwilling to continue. "You must be a guest too, huh?" he asked. "But why were you chosen? I can't see anything wrong with you." He appraised her with his sunken, dark-circled eyes.

"Or with you," Six countered, giving the boy the same look.

The boy flapped his right arm, which hung limply at his side. "Dead arm," he said simply. "They only take the kids with something wrong with 'em to become guests. The deformed ones. The ugly ones. They all get to become guests."

"What about the rest?" asked Six.

The boy shivered, unwilling to speak. Six poked his hand between the bars and he drew away. "Well, tell me," she demanded.

"T… taken," said the boy, hesitating.

"Taken where?" pressed Six.

The boy drew back and sat on his seat, curling his good arm around his knees and putting his head down. "The… the Janitor," he whispered. "Takes them. Bundles them up. He almost bundled me, but then he saw my bad arm and called me a guest. Now I get the Hunger like the others."

"The Janitor?" asked Six. "You mean the long-armed man? Is that what he is? A janitor?"

The boy turned his hollow eyes to her. "You should go," he whispered. "At least you're on the good side of the bars."

"What about you?" asked Six.

The boy gave another dry wraith of a laugh. "The Hunger's too bad now," he said. "Even if I could escape it would find me and then I wouldn't care what I ate. I could drink my own blood. I could eat you." His gaze was suddenly sharp and Six felt a stab of fear, knocking her back a step. The boy's lips twitched, but she couldn't tell whether it was upwards in a satirical smile or downwards in a pinched frown. "And I wouldn't even feel sorry about it."

The boy's sudden energy subsided and he slumped, his hair hanging over his eyes. "Please. Leave me."

Six, although reluctant to leave the despairing boy, began climbing toward the broken bars over the adjacent window. _It can't be what he thinks_, Six thought. _The Hunger went away quickly enough once I had something to eat. It's only dream hunger, after all. But oh, how real it felt in that moment._

And with that thought and one last questioning look back at the boy, Six dropped into the next room and out of sight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**Button up your coat**

**This submarine is leaking**

**\- 'Hungry for Another One', by JT Music**

Six looked down from the platform she stood on into the great, gaping nothingness below. The misty depths stretched onward beyond her toes, dipping into eternity. _I wish I had a stone to throw down there_, Six found herself wishing. _I wonder if it would hit the bottom and make a sound. Then I would know if this place is truly bottomless._ Unfortunately nothing appeared to satiate that desire and Six turned away, disappointed.

There was a long wooden staircase leaning up against the nearest wall like an old man with balance issues. One hand held against the wall to support her climb, Six ascended.

_I wonder if this is the Janitor's path_, Six wondered, _or if someone else built it here. It's not too steep for me, so it must be just right for the Janitor's stumpy legs, but it doesn't seem wide enough for his long arms._

Six shuddered and pushed aside the thought of the Janitor's grotesque, groping arms and popping knuckles, banishing it with the thought: _Well, he's far behind me now. I might come upon him again, but when I do, I'll be ready for it. He can't see and I can, so that's an advantage for me._

The nearest landing had an open door standing nearby. Even though the stairway continued in a more promising fashion, she peered in out of curiosity. Nothing much out of the ordinary stood there, except for a few shady-looking filing cabinets, and Six was about to leave when she saw something that piqued her interest. A dark smudge, much like the ink the Nomes had been using before, stained the floor, streaking across several tiles but stopping on a certain brown one which appeared, after further inspection, to be standing out a little more than flush with the ground.

Intrigued, Six wandered over to inspect it closer. She put her foot on the strange tile, then pressed down. There was a grating sound and the closet over in the corner shone with a sudden inner light. Heart pounding, Six ran to get the chair, pulling it over and setting it on the tile. Then she went over to the closet.

The closet's back wall had opened up, revealing a hidden room. There didn't seem to be any outlet, but Six had gone too far to care. Her curiosity was gnawing and she allowed it to carry her into the strange room and see what might stand therein.

The room was bare except for an armless wooden chair and what seemed to be a control panel set in the exact center of the floor. Six climbed up and inspected it. She had been expecting, perhaps, a myriad of buttons, levers, and switches to entertain her, but instead was greeted by a single gray button. _Well, one button was better than none_, she thought, and placed both hands on it, tamping it solidly down. The gigantic dark semblance of a metal eye she had not noticed before opened, the light shining beneath the lid causing Six to temporarily panic.

_Is this it?_ Six wondered, flinching. _Am I going to die here? Is this eye going to turn me to stone?_

But then her fear was forgotten, for the eye's light – far from threatening or baleful – resolved itself as the eye opened fully to reveal a screen, displaying a familiar sight.

_It's the children sleeping in the beds!_ Six realized. She looked down on them in wonder, watching them sleep, their chests rising and falling, rumpled hair brushing over their foreheads, blankets covering each.

_How strange this contraption is_, Six thought and pushed the button once more.

The eye closed and when it opened again, it displayed Nomes scurrying about in some forgotten place, their conical heads illuminated in the light of a single candle. Six smiled and hid the urge to wave at them. They were so adorable, scurrying around where they thought nobody could see! She pressed down the button again and was greeted by a less adorable sight.

A cellar, stocked with vegetables, cheese, sausages, and numerous bottles of unknown liquids. Six looked at it uneasily, checking herself to make sure that the cursed Hunger was not aroused by such a sight. Not a grumble, so Six began to move on, but a movement in the corner of the screen caused her pause and she looked with alarm upon a new adversary.

In the corner of the pantry where she had not observed before sat a gelatinous giant, dressed in the semblance of a chef, sleeping with head dipping down to his chest. This new monster was as unlike the Janitor as an apple from an orange, the only resemblance being that they were both horrifically ugly. The Janitor was thin as a broomstick and ill-proportioned for his stubbly legs. The chef had the right proportions, arms and leg-wise, but these ligaments were thick with the fat that would not fit along the creature's middle, which itself was bloated beyond reason. The chef's puffy face drooped, appearing both waxy and rubbery at the same time, the half-open lips dripping drool onto the white apron.

Somehow, this sight was more disgusting for Six than terrifying. _I'm sure that if I ever encountered this creature he would be too slow to stop me_, she thought, and pressed the button yet again.

The eye blinked and showed her an image of a purple corridor, stairs leading upward to a second level. The walls were lined with fine paper and pictures hung in fine frames. It was a beautiful, yet sinister place, and Six pushed the button after only a few seconds of observation.

Her heart stopped with the next image, for in a room that seemed like it might be connected to the purple corridor sat the woman, running her hand through her raven hair, steeped in shadow. Behind her was a shattered mirror on a vanity, taking up most of the image. Six felt a cold shiver arc up her spine. Even though she knew that there was no way that the woman could see her, she was convinced that any moment that masked face would turn and the hollow eyes would stare straight into her soul. Hands trembling, Six pushed the button and the eyelids closed, their slideshow finished.

Six hopped down, but a certain feeling gave her pause. She wasn't sure what it was, but something told her to push the button one more time. She let the urge take control and allowed the enormous eyelid open once more. Six's own eyes opened in amazement, for on the screen was an image she hadn't seen before. A mirror, unbroken, lying on a cushion. Even though this sight was unextraordinary in itself, Six felt like there was some significance to the sight of an unbroken mirror, especially since the mirror next to the Lady had been shattered.

_Maybe she can't stand to look at herself_, Six thought in excitement. _Oh, if only I could find that mirror!_

She stared at the image until she couldn't stand to stare any longer. Then she pushed the button and let the eyelid close.

_Well, I found something_, Six thought triumphantly, heading back the way she had come and continuing up the wooden stairs. _I don't know exactly what it means, but it must be important to have shown up on the magic screen. Perhaps I can find it in real life, in the future. Perhaps it will serve to be a vital clue._

At the top of the staircase was another door, this one set into a wall that seemed almost like the front of a house. There was a window, opened to the outside, a bucket, and what looked like a porchlight illuminating it all. Six climbed through the window and into the room, not knowing what to expect.

It looked like an entire house rolled into one room. There was a toilet and a sink in one corner, several high cabinets, a table with green and purple bottles, and a wardrobe with a lever on it, which – upon further inspection – caused the insides to fold out into a bed. Six bounced on this several times while examining the pictures hanging on the walls. She saw a picture of the fat chef over one wall, and several pictures of Nomes. Most disturbing of all was the image of the Janitor, no less ugly in black and white than in real life.

Six had the sudden thought: _I wonder if this is his room_. And then there was a thump from the stairs behind her. Most likely it was simply the creak of floorboards or the thump of something moving down below, but it was enough to get the little girl moving. _I have to get out of here_, she thought with renewed vigor and began to search desperately for a way out.

On the table was a key, and a part of the wall swung open to reveal a secret door and the key's lock. Six, ears straining for another unpleasant sound, inserted and turned the key. The lock snapped open and Six fled into the adjoining room.

The first thing that caught her eye was the large button set into the side of the wall. The second thing was a brown toy monkey sitting cross-legged on the floor, a golden cymbal held in each hand.

"Hello, Sir Monkey," Six said, squatting in front of the monkey's blank stare. "Would you like to escape with me?"

The monkey did not respond, but Six took it up in her arms, walking over with it to look at the button. "I think I'm going to have to throw you," she told the monkey. "I hope you don't mind."

The monkey did seem to mind, for upon being thrown and hitting the button it began to screech, clanging its cymbals together and chittering. Six sucked in a breath between her teeth and sank into the shadows as she heard a rumbling noise grow louder and lights flash outside the closed door.

_Please, please be quiet, Sir Monkey_, Six thought, unable to speak the plea aloud. She closed her eyes as the door opened, certain that the Janitor would come storming out, gums smacking, fingers creeping across the floor to catch first the monkey, then her. But nothing came. Six tentatively peered around the crate she hid behind and found herself looking at an empty elevator, beckoning cheerfully for her to enter. She stepped forward before turning back to look at the monkey.

"Here we must part ways, Sir Monkey," she told it. "I'm sorry, but you're far too noisy to bring along. If you were a quiet monkey and a little bit smaller, I'd be happy to bring you along, but as you are, I cannot. So, now we must say goodbye."

The monkey was silent again and did not even give a peep as she walked into the elevator. In a moment she was back again, picking him up and saying in a nettled sort of tone, "I can't get to the button without you. I tried. So we must travel together a little more, I suppose, Sir Monkey. Just… try to be quiet, will you? I'm trying to escape."

The monkey obliged until he was thrown at the button again. He lay clapping and shrieking on the floor as Six hid in one of the many crates stacked about the elevator, frowning in exasperation and covering her ears. _If he were my age, I would spank him_, she thought savagely.

The elevator slid to a halt and Six came out of her crate, giving the monkey a wide berth as she fled toward the exit. _I prefer Nomes, really_, she thought to herself. _You might not be able to throw them around, but they're at least quiet. Softer, too._

Without so much as a goodbye to Sir Monkey, Six walked out into the darkened corridor and set off down it. The monkey stared sadly after her.

_Serve him right_, Six thought. _What good is he if all he does is make noise? If I hadn't left him, the Janitor might have come running. He might have found me and done to me whatever he does to the rest of the children in here. I'm lucky to be rid of him._

Six stumbled and came to a halt, her innards beginning to twist again. _It's that cursed Hunger_, she thought, gritting her teeth. _I can control it. Let me wait for just a moment and it will ebb again, then I can move._

In a few seconds the twisting subsided into smaller, less substantial pangs. _I need to find something to eat soon_, Six thought in panic, moving as fast as she was able. _Perhaps the Janitor dropped some crumbs of bread or cheese from up above. Maybe there's something down here I can—_

The Hunger struck again and Six curled like an oyster protecting its pearl. Black spots covered her vision, dappling the already dark corridor and blocking out the light. Six gritted her teeth and whimpered, waiting out this newest bout.

_I can't go on like this much longer_, Six groaned to herself, stooping below a protruding pipe and stumbling onward. A ringing had begun in her ears, thin tendrils of a shady song come from somewhere beyond her own mind. Six clamped her arms over her belly, trying to block it out. Another moment and she was struck to her knees, the Hunger ravaging her form in worse pain than ever before.

"_I wouldn't care what I ate,"_ the hopeless boy had said. _"I could drink my own blood. I could eat you."_

She hadn't understood the boy's words before, but now she did. As she lay wallowing in her hunger, those words came back with startling accuracy.

_If Sir Monkey were here_, she thought, _I would start gnawing on his head. If a rat comes near, I'll catch it in my teeth._

The Hunger slowed, but not much. Six was able to limp forward, stooped in a perpetual hunch. She heard the skittering of rats and raised her head, wobbling down the stairs. Through bleary eyes, she spied two rats sniffing something in a cage. They ran away when she came near, but Six hardly noticed. Her eyes were fixed on the thing in the cage.

Raw meat. Food!

Stumbling, shuffling, pushing herself forward, Six leaped at the food. She began to shove it into her mouth, not even caring how it tasted or that it was uncooked or if it might be dirty. All that mattered was satiating the Hunger as quickly as possible. It was as if the Hunger had become a live person living inside her skin, clawing at the inside of her belly until she gave it an offering. Her teeth tore into the raw meat, tearing it free in long, red strips, juice dripping from it onto her fingers. She lapped it up and took another bite.

When she had eaten enough to almost be conscious again, Six caught something out of the corner of her vision. The cage door behind her closing. Her mouth full, Six fell backwards, anxious to escape her new prison, but the door was shut. With a lurch, the cage began to move upwards, the bars above her head twined with long, bony, cracking fingers. Six swallowed her mouthful and curled up into a ball, staring in horror as a face came into view, skin sagging over unseeing eyes, nostrils flared, a gruesomely stretched smile revealing rotting teeth.

"Runaway come to play…" the Janitor murmured and Six could feel his rancid breath wash over her. She tried to hide behind her arms. "…Moon is shining through the day… Lots of food, meat to bite… coming to the feast tonight…"

He repeated the chant and Six's mind began to drift. Whether it was something lethargic in his words or a soporific quality from his breath she couldn't tell, but something lulled her into a sort of doze. She tried to fight it, but the urge to sleep was as strong as the Hunger. It wasn't sleepiness, exactly, but more the overwhelming thought: _why does it matter? What does anything matter anymore? Just give up. Just let your mind rest for a little. Perhaps when you wake up, everything will be all well. Just for a little while, rest._

When Six could resist no longer, her head dipped and she lay on the cage floor. The Janitor stopped chanting and his smile stretched even larger.

"Yellow maiden, terror-shaken… fighting fire face desire… Lady ask of me this task…"

His face loomed over the unconscious girl, beginning to draw her upwards.

"…Little one to death succumb."

…

"Hey."

Six heard the whisper through the veil of darkness. She realized she had been awake for some time and decided that she should probably lift her head. Once she did, she wondered if that had been wise.

She was in a small steel cage surrounded by other steel cages which were stacked upon each other, lining the back wall. One was underneath her and there were two others beside her. Even though Six's cage allowed her enough room to stand, she curled into a tighter ball than before, staring at the stooping shadows of children in her neighboring cages.

"Hey."

The whisper came again and Six's eyes alighted on one of the nearer cages, down below. There was a boy in that one who, unlike the other children, was not stooping. He was kneeling, his hands clutching the bars, peering up at her with piercing intensity through a mop of shaggy brown hair, blue shirt loosely hanging about his scrawny frame. Six was immediately struck with a strong feeling that this boy was different. This place had not snuffed out the fiery spark in his eye, nor had it subdued the strength in his grasping hands. His appearance in the shadows reminded her somewhat of the hopeless boy who had thrown her the bread before, but it was clear upon further inspection that those two boys were as different as night was to day.

"The Janitor's coming back soon," the boy whispered, pressing himself up against the bars. "We don't have long to talk."

Six found it difficult to speak, as if a spell still rested on her. "H…" she wheezed. "H…how are you…"

"Conscious?" the boy completed. He shrugged. "I dunno. The spells don't really stick on me. Not for long, anyway. I woke up in one of those beds along with all the other kids, but they were still asleep. So I decided to make a break for it. I was lucky – there are a few other kids who've tried to run, but they all got turned to dust or whatever. You know, by those wooden eyes."

Six shivered, remembering the carved eyes and their deadly golden light. "I saw those too."

"I was able to get by, though."

"Did the Nomes help you?" Six asked, a little of her lethargy ebbing as she remembered the helpful creatures.

"Nomes?" the boy's brows creased.

"The little skittering things with cone heads." Six tried to use her hands to demonstrate the shape, but they refused to lift themselves.

"Oh, those things?" The boy's eyes lit with recognition. "I've seen them around! But no, they didn't help me."

"They drew pictures for me," Six murmured. "They showed me that the Janitor was blind."

"Yeah, I figured that out for myself," the boy said proudly. "But you'd better watch out – the Janitor's not the worst thing around here. There's this… creature down there in the depths. Well, not anymore. I took care of her. But there's still lots of water down there, so don't go that direction if you get away and can't swim. Hey, are you listening to me?"

The boy clanged the bars and Six realized she had been dozing off again. "Leave me alone," she muttered.

"C'mon, don't fall asleep!" the boy begged. "You need to help me get away! Look, your cage is on top of another cage – if you wiggle enough, you should be able to knock yourself right off. Your cage'll break and you can find the key for mine!"

"Can't…" Six droned. "Too… tired…"

"Oh come on!" The boy's voice hissed urgently. "Don't you want to get out of here? You realize what they do to us kids, right?"

"Some become guests…" Six murmured, half in a dream.

"That's only the ugly ones," the boy whispered, clattering the bars again to keep her awake. "That's only some of us. But do you know about the rest? Do you know what they become?"

"I dunno." Six really didn't care at that point.

_Clang! _The boy's bars jangled again.

"They become food, that's what they become!"

Six's eyes opened reluctantly. "W- what?"

"It's all about eating here," the boy whispered, excited that he had finally said something to snap her from her reverie. "You eat or you're eaten – that's the only rule. We kids get wrapped up and sent to the kitchen. Somewhere along the way we get bigger – to feed more people, you know – and then we get chopped up into mincemeat. Sucked down like sausages at the feast. Do you want that for me? Do you want to just stay there and let it happen to you?"

"I… I…" Six stammered, but her brief shock ebbed again, swirling away into the mist of apathy. "I don't believe you."

"Do you think I would make this up?" The boy's eyes sparked with wrath. "Listen, the spells don't stick on me, so maybe I could get out alive, but unless you buck up, you're as good as meat already."

Before Six could answer, the door to their room squealed open. In came the Janitor, long fingers grasping for the nearest cage. The boy gave Six a single resentful glance before resuming the slumped, hopeless position the other children were in. He didn't make a movement as his cage was hauled away. Not even as the door behind him slammed shut.

* * *

**A/N: Hey there! It's me, PastSelf. I promised myself I wouldn't do any author's notes until the end, but some of you who are commenting are signed in as guests and I can't PM you. So I just wanted to give a big ol' shout-out to those who left reviews for this fanfic and to those of you who are reading this right now! I appreciate it more than you can know. Keep 'em up!**

**I also wanted to explain something in this chapter: the Runaway Kid and the boy who gave Six the food at the beginning are NOT the same boy. I know a lot of people think that, but playing through the game and the DLC, those timelines don't add up. There's no way he could be there at that time since he was there when the linen was dropped through the window to escape. Just wanted to clarify: not the same.**

**Again, thanks for reading and I'll be sure to post again soon.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**I'm stuck in this dungeon with some ugly company**

**Watching me hungrily stumbling, bumbling…**

**\- 'Hungry for another one,' by JT Music**

After a long while of listening to her thoughts, Six summoned the strength to stagger to her feet. The sight of the Janitor and the boy's words had shocked her enough that she could almost think again, but the stupor clung to her legs, attempting to drag her back down. She leaned heavily against the bars, fighting against the urge that made her knees dip down and her head slump forward.

_Just wiggle and the cage will fall off and open_, the boy had suggested, but it seemed that it would take a bit more than a wiggle to get the cage to fall. She tried rocking, but even that was ineffective. Finally, summoning all her energy, she slammed herself into the side of the cage to get it to move toward the edge. Several times she did so until at last she found herself free falling, landing with a bruising 'thump' and hearing the top of the cage pop open.

Six scuttled out, brushing herself off. With freedom from the cage had come renewed resolve. She _would_ escape and see the sunrise. This dream would not end with her death.

Six dragged one of the cages over to the pull-lever that hung from the ceiling. The cage's inhabitant didn't even flinch, even when Six hopped on top of the cage and began to swing like a trapeze artist on the pulley. The door came open and Six threw herself toward the opening, sliding through before it closed.

_I made it_, Six thought, shaking as she brushed herself off. The last of the cursed stupor had ebbed and she was able to stand without wishing to sink down to the floor. A general bleariness still veiled her mind and she blinked quickly, trying to dispel it. To get past the Janitor she would need to be as alert as possible.

_I can do this_, she thought, beginning to climb up the door's wooden grating. _I'm fast. I'm small. I'm clever enough… I think. And he doesn't have any eyes, which is two less than I have. _She dropped down into the adjoining room. _And look, the floors are mostly lined with carpet. If I keep my head clear, this'll be the easiest thing ever!_

But keeping her head clear was easier said than done. As soon as she dropped down to the carpeted floor, she became aware of a metrical murmur, low and grating, hissing from the far end of the room. Six, blinking very hard, skirted the nearest cages and looked up at its source: the Janitor.

He was swaying back and forth, his thin neck moving as smoothly as a snake's, his large, bobbling head rolling back and forth to its movement. The head was so large and the neck so thin that Six almost let herself be pulled back into stupor again, watching the rhythmic sway and wondering if this time would be the one where the head would dip a little too far and the neck would snap like a dried stick. The very tip of the Janitor's tiny hat was level with the countertop, where his stretching arms grasped and his limber fingers twined about their possession. He did not need to see when he could feel the work to be done.

"Silver scissors, snipping, snipping." Six could suddenly hear his words quite clearly. "Fabric all a-clipping, clipping. Twirling, twirl around the boy… all to give m'lady joy."

Six realized with a start that banished the spell completely that the limp, shadowy object in the Janitor's left hand was a child. She wondered briefly if it was the boy she had been talking with before, but then decided upon further inspection of the nearly cocooned child that it could not have been him. _How long was I asleep?_ Six wondered. _How long has he been gone while I was wrestling against the spell? Well, for his sake, and my own, I can't stop now._ Trying to block her ears as the Janitor began another verse, she crept forward to the very edge of the carpet and prepared to leap over the uncovered gap. Holding her breath and taking a running start, she jumped.

_Creak._

Six gasped and stumbled fully onto the carpet. If only the edge had been a little bit closer! The Janitor's head had perked upright. She could hear him sniffing, all senses gone on full alert, gently resting the mummified boy on the countertop as he turned in her direction. Six ducked into a nearby open cage, praying that those grasping fingers would not seize her. She could smell him as he passed, that now-familiar linty, smoky smell. Even though it was subtle, she could feel her throat closing up in resistance of the scent.

_Go away, go away, please go away_, she chanted silently, stooped in a half-crouching position.

He groped past her cage, feeling for the far end of the room, and Six breathed easier again. _Except that's the area I'm trying to get to_, she realized, feeling her stomach tighten with dread. _Must go carefully. Carefully._

Six climbed up on top of the cage, being as quiet as she possibly could, overthinking every footstep, silencing every thought, listening to the Janitor's hushed rhymes:

"Little child meek and mild… Do not flee, come to me… Sink your head, hear my call… Feel the ashes of the Maw…"

The Janitor groped Six's way again and she leaned her back against a wooden beam, biting down on her lower lip. But his hands were skimming the floor toward the opposite direction and Six's fear levels sank again. She realized that on this cage she was just a little higher than the level of his hat. Looking down on him this way, the Janitor's scariness abated. He was no longer a predator but an old blind man searching for a sound in the dark. He didn't know she was there. For all he knew, a rat had made that sound, or it was just his imagination playing tricks on him. Six's lips twisted in a satirical smile as she backed away, watching the shaking old hands stretch in the wrong direction. The old fool, so easily misled and so easily tricked. She felt no pity for him. None at all.

Six took another running leap and landed safely on another battered stretch of carpet. With a single triumphant look backward, she ducked through a short shaft and out of that room, leaving the Janitor to bumble about without her.

There was a large winch drum set onto one of the wooden beams that stretched to the ceiling. Six followed the rope leading off it with her eyes, still keeping half an ear cocked to the Janitor's position. The rope led from the drum, up the beam, across the ceiling, down another beam, and then wrapped around the handle of a very heavy-looking metal trapdoor set solidly into the floor. _Much too heavy for me to lift on my own, _Six decided. _I'll have to use the winch._

She searched around for the crank, which seemed to have been separated from the rest of the contraption. _It might have been wise to do so,_ Six considered. If it had been set out of reach in some hard-to-get area she might have had some difficulty finding it before the Janitor found her. But as it was, lying out in the middle of the floor in plain view, the difficulty was minimal and Six soon had the crank in her grasp.

_This will probably make noise_, Six thought, gritting her teeth and sliding the crank into the winch. _I'd better be ready to run as soon as the trapdoor is open._

She pulled on the crank, her eyes fixed on the trapdoor. Her back was to the door, which caused her some anxiety, but she would rather know when her exit was open so that she didn't panic and run too soon. Through the closed door behind her back she could hear the Janitor turn. The crank was relatively soft, but for one whose ears were so attuned to every noise Six might as well have been shouting and clapping her hands, slamming her feet down on the ground and knocking her winch against the pillars.

_Just a little more_, she thought. _Just a little more._

She heard a bellow from the Janitor and the door behind her slid open. All thoughts about the Janitor being a senile old fool suddenly dropped from her mind and terror rose again. The trapdoor clanked against the beam and the rope attached to the winch went slack. Six didn't even look back at the Janitor. She fled in a tense, desperate run toward the gaping exit, not knowing or caring where it might lead. The Janitor gave a hiss and she could feel the wind of his searching arm as she jumped. She could hear the pop of his knuckles as they clenched and the snap of his hand as it clasped empty air.

Then she was falling. The smooth sides of a metal chute welcomed her and Six plunged into the darkness. The fall was short – not even long enough to allow Six to glance upon the rashness of her actions – and soon Six's feet hit the uneven ground. The little girl gave one quick look upwards and scampered into the nearest branching shaft. Her imagination had summoned an image of those long, bony arms reaching in after her, fingers pawing the ground where she had once stood. Six did not turn around to see if this was the reality. She crawled, one hand up to hold her lighter, deeper into the shafts. Every so often a larger area would open up and Six could stand, but she kept moving forward, pressing onward into the blackness.

A rumble sounded up above. Six cowered, arms stretched up above her head, as something heavy descended, striking her over the back and on her sheltering hands. She kicked out, propelling herself into the darkness. When she was far enough away, she looked back.

A mismatched pair of leather boots lay in the place where she had been a moment prior. As Six watched, a third rumbled down and out of a gap in the chute's ceiling to join them. Six stared at them for a moment as if waiting for them to sprout legs and scuttle after her like crabs, but they made no such movement.

After she had determined that the shoes were just shoes, Six turned away and continued down the circular metal path. But if she had thought that those shoes were the last ones she would see that night she was sorely mistaken, for as soon as the tunnel ended and Six was allowed to straighten up, she found herself on the edge of a short drop into a room that was crammed with the things. They covered the floor like water would cover a shallow basin. Six could hardly tell how deep the room was because of just how many shoes there were. Every so often an overhead chute would dump another ten or so into the mass and they would roll, tumbling into the nooks and crannies left unfilled and lay there, waiting patiently until they would move again.

Six was pinched by an unexplainable feeling, one that was akin to sadness, but also seemed to be related to fear. She knew, although she did not dwell on the thought very long, that two shoes belonged to a single person, and that as a seemingly infinite number of pairs were rolling about this very room, a massive number of people had belonged to these shoes. People who, Six guessed, had no need of these shoes anymore.

The little girl allowed herself to drop onto the jumble of shoes and immediately fell to her knees. The shoes were tricky to move over. There was always a hole for her foot to get caught in, or a slick surface to slide over. The shoes constantly shifted and Six moved through them in a half-wade, half-stagger, stumbling kind of movement. As she went, she couldn't help noticing what kind of shoes she went over. Big brown boots, like those that would belong to men. Sleek, battered women's shoes with flat or spiked heels. Smaller shoes, painted gray in the scant light, some small enough almost to fit Six herself. Children's shoes. Adult shoes. Men's shoes. Women's shoes. All kinds were here in varying conditions, in different sizes and colors and makes, causing the room to reek with the smell of decomposing leather, with mold, and with mildew. Six coughed slightly as her foot sank into the grimy pit of an oversized man's shoe, letting loose a horrible smell. She gagged, but moved on, trying to brush off the slimy feel from her bare foot.

And then she froze. Something had brushed her foot – she was sure of it! The shoes around her were shifting, turning over, starting to roll. It had started subtly, but now there was a definite bulge in the shoe pile over to her left. As she watched, the bulge began to move and the shoes to roll aside. She could feel a rumble beneath her splayed form as she began crawling away, not caring how much mildew she sucked up into her lungs if only she could stay away from that thing! She kicked away from the unseen menace, her eye temporarily glancing over a shoe that had a definite bite mark taken out of it. Six was sure her heart stopped in that moment.

Fortunately, shoes weren't the only paraphernalia down in this hole. Six spotted a briefcase floating on top of the sea of leather and scrambled towards it, hoisting herself on top and clinging there as whatever-it-was bumped against it with a hollow-sounding 'thunk'.

_I can see the end of the room_, Six thought, desperately trying to work up some motivation to move. _I just have to reach the end and then I'm safe. Please, oh please, don't let the monster find me. Don't let it find me!_

Six picked out her course as she hesitantly stood. She could still feel the creature sifting about beneath her, shifting the case she was on, its deep rumble causing the case to vibrate and tickle the soles of her feet. She tried to ignore it and pretend that everything was alright, nothing was after her, as she took a running leap in the direction of the next case. She fell to her knees again as she landed, almost buried up to her neck in the shoes. Panic began to take over as the sonorous rumble sounded and she kicked out toward the briefcase as hard and fast as she could. As soon as she stood safely on the briefcase's side, she took off for the next one, not allowing the monster any time to catch up.

_I wish I could see the thing_, Six thought, panting. _As horrible as it would be to see what was trying to eat me… I think it's worse that I don't know what it is._

The final suitcase stood tantalizingly close. Six's hand reached out to brush it. For one horrible moment she felt the creature brush against her leg – scaly and cold – and then, as she lifted herself up, could feel hot breath on her foot and the scratch of something sharp and wet, like a jagged tooth. Even though she was not much hurt and not even bleeding, Six let out a yelp, leaping from the suitcase to the ledge that stood by the door. She ran inside the darkened room and examined her foot, keeping a careful eye on the pit of shoes as if worried that the monster would rise up and come after her.

Actually, come to think of it, she didn't feel all that scared anymore. Just angry. Out of all the things that had happened so far, an unnamed, faceless monster who lurked out of sight had been the one to draw first blood? True, she wasn't actually bleeding, but there was a sizable scratch along the side of her foot. Six stalked back to the pit of shoes, limping more than was technically necessary, but at the moment she was determined to be a drama queen. She glared down into the pit, trying to decide what would convey her emotions the best. She settled on spitting down in the monster's general direction and giving a savage nod of farewell. Scratch her foot indeed.

…

Six's anger fueled her for the next few hours, dodging the Janitor's clutches time and time again and racing to get away. She hardly felt fear anymore, even when trapped in a moving elevator with the Janitor's probing hands scouring the corners for a taste of her movement. Even when moving through a mass of dolls the size of herself, forced to push them aside to stay on the carpet, avoiding any hint of noise. Even when their lifeless eyes stared back at her, she pressed on with only a twinge of fear.

Even when she landed in a room full of clocks with the Janitor present only a few feet away and all the clocks went off at the same time. She only used this as a distraction for her benefit, the noise shielding her as she opened the door and made her escape.

Even when she had to search around for a crank to raise a hanging piano – yes, a hanging piano! – she felt no fear. Even when she was trapped alone in the room with only the crank and she had to turn on the nearby television set to get the Janitor to come in and investigate the noise. When she was back in the ventilation and the Janitor's long arms reached in slits between the pipes, she only felt the merest prick of fear, but not much. She had almost become desensitized to all the horrors around her, and now her mind was collected, calm, and cool.

But finally, despite her lack of fear and newly found cool thinking, Six finally found herself cornered in a room with only a tiny closed hatch up above, the only door blocked by the Janitor, whose groping hands reached around a metal cage – the only thing propping the door open.

"Come to me, little dear," the Janitor hissed, clawing towards Six's position. She jumped away, climbing to a safer location. "Come over here and do not fear."

_I'm already not afraid_, Six thought stubbornly. Did he really think he could tell her what to do and how to feel? Really?

"Obey, obey. You hear my voice," the Janitor continued, one hand giving a swipe. "Come to me. You have no choice."

_That cage looks pretty weak_, Six thought, watching its sides buckle outwards. _Maybe if I wait long enough it'll collapse!_

_But then again_, she thought as the Janitor's groping hand skimmed over the top of her hood and she scrambled away as the Janitor gave a triumphant hiss and a close snatch, _maybe I should give it some help._

Six carefully studied the Janitor's hands. When they moved away from the cage, she jumped forward and grabbed one of the two metal supports attaching the top and bottom corners. She could feel the Janitor's rank breath washing over her feet. The metal dug into her hands as she clenched it, but she pulled as hard as she could. Something snapped and Six tumbled backwards. The Janitor gave a screech: "Little one, what have you done?" and Six could see his brown molars as his mouth opened wide.

She dodged out of reach as his hands groped toward the cage, surveying the damage. They touched where the missing support should be and his arms withdrew a little. Then they renewed their search and Six could hear the Janitor whisper as if to himself, "Careful, careful now, I think. Clear of mind and strong resolve. My lady asked a job of me, so win and let her all my faults absolve."

_He's nervous now_, Six judged, watching as his hands kept closer to the cage than usual. _One more support ought to do it! But how? He's guarding that support too closely!_

Six decided that some risk must be involved at this point and jumped on the stack of boxes she had been standing on, making sure her feet pounded the top with a hollow noise. The Janitor hissed between his rotting teeth and both hands reached out toward her position. Six jumped over them, stumbled, and landed right beside the second support. Without delay, she began to pull.

The Janitor gave out another cry, this one of fear, and his arms came back. _I can't stop pulling,_ Six thought in a panic. _This is the only chance I might get!_

Too late to turn back. The Janitor's arms closed around her waist, his fingers digging sharply into her ribs. She could hear his cackle of triumph from the other side of the door, but Six was still holding onto the support. As the Janitor's hand tugged to pull her away, she gave one final, desperate yank.

The effect was immediate. The door sliced downward, shearing off both of the Janitor's arms at the stumps. The hands holding Six convulsed, slacking their grip and she kicked away, freeing herself. Outside the now closed door, the Janitor shrieked in agony, pounding his head against the door and causing the room to ring with the echoes of his hammering and his screeches.

"Little rogue," he screamed between howls, "little beast! You'll be punished at the feast!"

Six curled up and covered her ears with her hands, squeezing her eyes shut until the echoes faded. When she dared to open them again, all was still. The Janitor's dismembered arms lay before her, quiet and unmoving. Six tilted her head upward and noticed that the closed hatch up above wasn't closed anymore. _The Janitor's pounding must have opened it_, Six thought to herself. _Either that or it can only open when the other door is closed._

Carefully skirting the arms on the floor, Six made her way to the hatch. Her heart was still pounding and her hands shook as they pulled out her lighter, stooping to crawl into the open duct.

_Is the Janitor dead now?_ Six wondered. _Did I kill him? Or will he live forever without any arms?_

She felt a sick sensation in her stomach. Even though the Janitor had been anything but nice to her, Six was only a little girl and chopping off a person's arms – however despicable the person might be – left a bad taste in her mouth. She felt less than triumphant.

_Well, it was either him or me_, Six reasoned. _He started the job, but I finished it. He won't bother me ever again. And if he does… well, what's he going to do? Slam his head against me?_

The thought of the Janitor using his face as a hammer trying to squish her brought a small smile to her lips and Six felt a little bit better as she moved on.

_Anyway_, she thought. _I'm alive, and that's what matters._ _And I'll stay alive. That matters, too._


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

**Hide in the cupboard but not in the oven**

**I don't want to go in those pots they got bubblin'!**

**-'Hungry for another one' by JT Music**

Six looked at the passing hooks, mesmerized. They seemed to run along a track, starting from what Six could only assume to be the Janitor's lair, running to who-knew-where. Most of the hooks were empty, but every so often one would pass by with a wrapped bag hanging off of it. One of the bags had fallen to the floor and sagged there looking hopeless. Six inquisitively pulled up a part of the wrapping to see what was inside and immediately wished she hadn't.

Meat, fresh and raw. A single piece formed of squishy clumps twisted together into a single whole. Six remembered what the boy had said about the other half chosen to become food and shuddered, dropping the wrapping back in its place, for in that moment of realization she thought she saw the curve of what had once been a face, smoothed and warped into a singular slab of meat, integrated into the whole. Whether that had been her imagination or not, she would rather not think.

Despite her determination not to think of such gruesome matters, her mind began to ponder how the small bodies had come to look like this. Had the bags been circling around so long that the children inside had grown up? Had the confinement of the bags cramped their growing so that they developed into these meatbags? Or maybe there had been something on the way here – chemicals, perhaps, or some kind of magic – that had forced them to grow up quickly and folded them into the boneless cadavers that they were now.

Six shook the thoughts out of her head, forcing herself to think straight. She needed to get out of the room. That much was certain. But how?

The hooks. Six's eyes followed them out the gap and into the mists beyond. They didn't seem too slick. Her arms were strong. All she needed to do was get up to them, hang on, and they would bear her away. The only problem was getting up to them. They swung tantalizingly close, but not close enough. She needed a footstool – something to climb on. Her eyes alighted on the sack on the floor and she grimaced. Her stomach curled with even the thought of touching that thing again, but she tentatively stuck her foot onto the wrapping and began to climb.

_Ugh, it's squishy_, she thought, her mouth wrinkling in disgust. The meat was cold. She could feel it through the wrapping. She tried to ignore the sensation of walking on raw meat, for all at once the thought arose that maybe, like in the Janitor's room, the mind within was under a spell. What if the meat was still alive? What if she woke it up? What if while she was walking around on its back she suddenly felt a heartbeat? What if it started to breathe? What if—

The next hook swished above her head and Six leaped for it without delay, curling her feet toward her chest and looking back toward the slumped sack which looked as dejected – and unalive – as ever.

_I should really stop thinking such things_, Six reprimanded herself, unclenching and letting her legs swing free. _If I get too scared it's going to get me into trouble one day._

Once the shock left her, Six began to enjoy the sensation of swinging through the air. The cool, moist wind swept past her legs and the fog around her gradually dispersed, layer by layer, each becoming lighter than the last. The rattling of the track above her was the loudest noise around, but she could hear the distant noise of thundering gears, the hiss of steam, and the very present sound of air whooshing past her ears.

Finally the last layer of smog faded away and Six was able to see where she was going. Another large, metal-structured erection, to all appearances like the one she had just left. _Except, _she thought, _this one is closer to my journey's end. Wherever that may be._

Six became aware of another sound coming through the hovering darkness. A low, burbling sort of sound, annunciated by an explosive hacking noise, like someone trying to cough up a hairball. Six turned in the direction of the sound – which was harder than she presumed, dangling as she was – and saw up above a parapet jutting out of the side of the metal structure before her. On the structure was a figure, mostly shrouded in the smog, but she recognized that lumpy, slouched silhouette in an instant. It was the fat cook from the kitchen who she had seen in the magic moving pictures!

The fat cook was staring over the line of oncoming hooks, obviously scoping out how many bags there were. Six shifted, wondering if he would look at her next, but the fat chef only turned and walked back inside, his calculations apparently completed. Six breathed a sigh of relief.

And then she was swallowed by the opening before her. She was inside. The track continued on into the depths of the building, but twin clamps descended on either side of the hook Six was on and the jolt shook her loose. She fell, but landed on something squishy and uneven. Grunting with each harsh bump, Six rolled head over heels down the decline. She landed with a roll at the bottom and staggered backwards, trying to regain her breath, but as soon as she saw what she had been rolling on, it was taken away again.

A mass of those heavy meat-laden sacks lay in a heap below the hook clamps. They must be there to shake these bags loose, Six thought through her daze. She scanned the heap up and down, seeing here and there a bit of uncovered tendon, a strip of red, or an exposed slab ready to be chopped up and cooked. Six turned away in disgust and began down the corridor.

And then the disgust twisting her stomach took a sudden turn and twisted in a different manner. _Again?_ Six groaned, curling in around her gut. This circumstance had become all too familiar for Six to be much more than startled, so she waited out the primary hunger pangs until they allowed her to move again.

_I need to find food as soon as possible_, she thought, peering about as she trotted forward. _If I don't, I'm not sure what'll happen. Shouldn't there be a kitchen around here somewhere?_

The Hunger set in again and Six slumped, gritting her teeth. Black spots were dancing before her eyes and the pain savagely tore at her middle. _It's getting worse,_ she realized as she rose. _Last time I felt like I could eat almost anything. Now I feel like I really could eat anything. Even—_

Her mind turned back to what she had just left. A ripe mountain of meat just there for the taking.

"No!" Six exclaimed aloud and hurried forward, hand clamped over her stomach. That unwanted thought had horrified her, yet her mind kept running over it again and again. _Just a taste_, it coerced. _Just a little taste. Just to keep the madness at bay. Who knows if you'll find anything else in time?_

As the Hunger rose to its peak yet again, Six sank to her knees, the chorus becoming deafening in her ears. She wanted that meat. She wanted it so badly! Who cared where it came from? It was something to slake the gnawing greed. It would go away as soon as she fed it.

_No, no, no!_ Six thought, realizing she had been crawling back as her thoughts prompted. She tried to fix in her mind the wrongness of it all, how it should not be, no matter how much she willed it, but arguments always rose again, even as she limped in the right direction.

It was just meat, wasn't it? She was hungry, wasn't she? It was there for the taking. Who cared where it came from? Who cared what – or who – it had been before? She had eaten the meat the Janitor had baited her with. It could have been the same thing. Who was she to judge?

Six whimpered in her throat, wondering how much longer she could hold out. A black spot hovered before each eye, whipping back and forth. She realized she was dimly looking at a rat scurrying on the floor before her. It saw her, squeaked, and tried to run away, but fled right into a large rattrap in the middle of the floor. It struggled, but the trap pinned it too tightly to move.

Six limped toward the struggling creature, the voice of her madness singing in her ears. She could see the tendons tight beneath the fur, the ripple of moving muscle as it shook with fear. As soon as she was close enough, she grabbed it. Instead of its movement dissuading her, it fueled her greed as a dog is stimulated by the struggles of a bird he's caught in his jaws. She ripped into the rat's neck, cutting of its frantic cries, digging past the fur into the red meat within, holding down its hind end as it lashed about with its tail. The rat's blood pulsed out onto her face and down her chin, but she lapped it up like water, going back for another mouthful. The rat stopped moving. Six stopped eating. She stood and backed away.

For a long time, Six only stood there, staring down at the mangle remains of the beast she had eaten alive. Its matted fur was stained with blood and its throat was torn open. _I did that,_ Six thought, unconsciously rubbing her bloody hands on her yellow raincoat. _I did that._

But then she thought of the alternative and pinched her mouth shut, moving on. If it was between eating dead human meat or eating a live rat, she was willing the rat should be the one to fall.

_But why? _her mind insisted on wondering. _The humans were already dead, after all. Do you have such respect for the dead that you resist feeding off one?_

Six had very little respect for the dead, and very little superstition of any curse that would arise from doing such a deed. She was too young to wonder the ethics behind her actions, but something had told her that succumbing to those urges, feasting on once-human flesh, would be – in simple terms – yucky. Yuckier than eating a rats, no matter how that rat still wriggled. In her book, some wrongs were worse than other wrongs.

…

_If only I had held out a little longer_, Six thought, dropping into a pantry. She scanned the laden shelves, admiring the bunches of carrots, barrels of potatoes, buckets of fish, and many other assortments of food. She touched a nearby stalk of celery as if daring the Hunger to strike again while she was surrounded by things to eat, but there never felt even a grumble. Six couldn't help feeling relieved, for even though these things were available and seemed nourishing, the Hunger seemed to have moved beyond such meager pickings as carrots and onions. Not now that she had tasted live meat.

Unwilling to pursue these thoughts, Six moved out the door and across the corridor. Her steps slowed as a noise came to her ear. She could hear the bubbling of pots on stovetops, the sound of meat being chopped, and – worst of all – the sound of heavy footsteps moving around. Six quieted her footsteps and crept to the doorway. Inside was a monster.

The fat chef, dressed in stained apron and white chef's hat, slaved over a slab of meat, digging into it with a knife in brief spurts, taking breaks in between. His face sagged and drooped, his cheeks weighed down with their own mass, keeping his mouth perpetually open. His fingers were thick, but they clutched the knife with strength. The hem of his apron obscured everything but the very bottoms of the chef's black shoes, black as the chef's dark eyes. He snuffled as he worked, his throat letting clogged breaths into the air. Every so often he wheezed something that might have been a song.

Six found herself fixating on the chef's face, peering into the sagging curves around his eyes. Something seemed wrong about it. Well, maybe 'wrong' was not the best way to explain it, but she felt as if it was off somehow. Perhaps it was the waxiness of his skin. Maybe the gap between the skin around his eyes and the eyes themselves. Maybe how the flab on the back of his neck stretched the wrong way when he leaned over too far.

And then it all made sense as the chef reached into a gap in his skin between the neck and the chest and gave whatever was under it a scratch. _He's wearing a mask!_ Six realized suddenly. This discovery, although startling, did not unnerve her as it might have. Instead, it intrigued her. She took a step forward.

And then the chef turned around. Six's heart leapt into her mouth and she ducked underneath a nearby countertop. But he didn't seem to have noticed her. Instead, he merely turned to a bowl on the counter, took a piece of sausage, and dropped it into a nearby pot. Six saw the boiling water splash out on the sausage's impact and drew her feet in a little tighter. The chef didn't seem to notice. He wandered into the next room. Six followed.

Inside was another kitchen, much more massive than the last one. The walls were lined with stoves and ovens and an island in the middle with even more. Cooking utensils hung on the walls and an enormous firepit stood along the back wall, several pots thickly bubbling over its flames. The fat chef moved through the kitchen, his white hat all Six could see from the far side of the island that separated them, bobbing among the kettles.

She spotted some movement. Two Nomes scurried out of the shadows, brushing past hanging ladles and potholders with only a little noise. Six watched their progress to the opposite side of the room and followed one's path, determined to make as little noise as they. But as she moved, her hand grazed an oven's open door. With even that slight touch, it jumped shut with a resounding slam. Six could hear the chef's burbling wheeze change a note and a low growl stick in his throat. His steps came closer. Six cringed against the oven's side.

Then she heard a shrill cry, overshadowed by the cook's gurgle of triumph. Six decided to run for it while the chef was distracted by whatever it was. She slid underneath a wooden table and kept going, peering back in his direction. The chef held a struggling Nome – presumably one of the ones she had just seen – in both meaty fists, a string of drool dripping from his half-open lips. The Nome whimpered like a hurt child – the first noise Six had heard out of the creatures besides their initial scurrying. It wasn't even struggling anymore. Just shivering. Six fled up the short flight of stairs to the back wall, still keeping her eyes on the captured Nome.

The chef gurgled again, sounding very satisfied. He held the Nome pinched in one hand and took a knife in the other. He began to slit open a fish that sat nearby on a cutting board. Six took a desperate look at the door along the back wall. Locked with a padlock. So she couldn't escape right now even if she wanted to.

The Nome shrieked again and Six turned back. The chef was in the process of lowering the Nome into the opened belly of the fish, trying to cram it in like stuffing. Six's heart twisted and she gave the nearby shelf a kick. One of the precariously balanced items on the top bounced and then toppled, falling to the ground and smashing open. The cook turned immediately, his piggy eyes glancing every which way to see what had caused the disturbance.

And then he saw her.

Six had been under the impression that the chef was dull and heavy, that since he had such weight on his frame that he was slow. She realized as he thundered toward her, knife clenched in one hand, Nome forgotten, that she had been sorely mistaken. Six began to climb the shelf, thankful for the many handholds. She could hear the keening cry of the chef as she clambered her way upward, kicking off the drawer rungs and onto the stacked shelves. She felt the wind of the chef's hand pass by her feet and almost felt his rubbery fingers slide off her soles, but then she was safe on top of the shelf, the chef looking stupidly up after her. She climbed even higher into the rafters where pieces of meat and enormous raw fish were hanging, ready to be processed or cured.

Six couldn't help smirking at the chef's dumb face as he bumbled around below her, bubbling incoherent words. He looked around, hurried to the table, and picked up a piece of cheese. He held it up to her, attempting to smile, although she couldn't see much of it through the mask, beckoning with his free hand. "'ood?" he gurgled. "'or 'oo! Goo' 'ood!" And he shook the cheese as if that made it more inviting.

Six played along, acting as if this interested her. She moved a little closer and peered down. The chef seemed excited. "shee?" he asked, holding his hand up as far as it could stretch. "I 'on't 'urt 'oo. 'Ome 'own 'ere." And he beckoned again.

Six pinched her lips together in a considering gesture, cocked her head, and then shook it, turning away. The chef's consoling gurgle became a panicked bubble of incoherent speech as he ran below her, shaking the cheese in her direction, and then picking up other foods and attempting to bribe her with them. But Six was tired of that game. She moved on, balancing evenly on the wooden rafters. Below her, the chef began to rage. She merely smiled to herself and began to climb some of the stored meats that had been left in containers. Mostly fish, although there was also some bread. _Now, to find the key for the door,_ she thought, wriggling through a panel and leaving the chef to throw his tantrum alone.

The panel led to a bathroom, oversized, as usual, with two toilets seated close together. Why anyone would need two toilets that close together was beyond Six, but she ignored it and pressed on. There was another small corridor beyond the bathroom door and Six walked down it, taking special note of the elevator on the right-hand passage. _That's my way back down once I find the key_, she thought to herself.

The farthest door creaked as Six leaned up against it, palms to its thickly grained wooden surface. The darkness inside sent a shiver of apprehension up her spine and she almost backed out again, but Six forced herself to press into the room. Only after her eyes had adjusted did she notice twin beds in the center of the room, their headboards pressed up against the wall. A shadowy mountain lay slumped in the second bed, a snore issuing with every fluctuation of its breath. _There's two of them?_ Six exclaimed internally. She nearly jumped backwards as the mountain's snore hitched, but did not relax when it settled back into its pattern.

_The key_, Six's fearful brain reminded. _I must find the key. It must be in here!_

Quiet as a mouse, Six started forward, her heart leaping into her throat with every creak of the floorboards. After her stint with the Janitor, every minimal noise sounded raucous. Every step was like a salute from a shotgun.

Then Six was under the bed. She felt a little safer, but only at first, for as soon as she was under the occupied bed she could hear the stretching of the overburdened springs and a terrible image reached her mind of the bed breaking and the mattress falling on her head. The claustrophobic feeling of the imagined weight was very real in that moment and Six was out from underneath before she had any recollection of moving.

But where to then? Six peered squinting into the darkness trying to scope out the key. Up above, dangling in the blackness, was a glimmer almost too dark to see. Keeping her eyes fixed upon it, Six began to ascend a nearby dresser, the handles of the drawers acting like rungs of a ladder. Her ears were still pricked to any sound.

With a slam like a gunshot, the door to the room closed, shut by the ever-present rocking. Six's heart almost stopped as the figure in the bed shot upright, grunting and untangling blankets from its massive figure. Her hands bore her upward as the figure straightened, groping in the darkness for the light-pull. The room was lightened just as Six reached the top of the high dresser. She cowered, but the monster did not seem to have seen her.

Six crept forward, only the very tip of her hood extending beyond the dresser's edge. Her heart stopped again as she saw hollow eyes looking up at her, a gaping mouth opened in her direction. She almost lost her wits completely before some more collected part of her brain informed her that the figure had simply pulled up its grotesque mask onto its forehead and the scant excuse for the monster's hair was showing through each eye socket. After this conclusion was reached, Six still felt devoid of movement, watching mesmerized as the dislocated face stared blankly in her direction, pivoting with the movement of its wearer. She was in no position to see the monster's true face, but the mask and the garb was almost the same as the chef's downstairs.

_Twins_, Six guessed.

The twin chef reached up with chubby fingers and pulled the gaping mask into place, plopping down a chef's hat where the mask had vacated. He gave a burbling sort of sigh, or maybe a grumble, and stumped out through the door, leaving it to swing open behind him. Six waited for several long, tense minutes before daring to move, certain that with any movement would come swift retribution.

But the twin chef did not return. Six remained alert, however, and calculated every movement carefully before making it. Soon the key was hers and she was taking it down the elevator to the lower level. _I need to be extra cautious_, she reasoned as the elevator descended. _There are two of them there now, and if they see me…_

Six didn't even need to finish that thought. She simply shook her head and stepped out of the elevator, but something stopped her from going toward the kitchen. A noise, a certain sound issuing from the pantry gave her pause. Six's curiosity piqued and she set the key down beside the door, heading in the opposite direction.

At first glance the pantry seemed the same as ever. Six gave a quick glance and was almost ready to turn around, giving it all up as a figment of the imagination, when an especially large jar on the floor jumped. Six blinked and with her second glance could see the shadowy figure of a Nome trapped inside the jar. Every time it jumped, the jar lurched. Unfortunately, it was making rather too much noise for comfort and Six hurried over to try and quell the Nome before its antics gathered too much attention. This plan was a failure, however, for the Nome seemed even more excited by her approach than before. Its jar tipped over and he rolled clanking over the floor. Six looked anxiously back through the doorway and wrung her hands.

Finally, in a desperate attempt to get the Nome free, Six picked up the jar in both hands and threw it toward a nearby barrel. The jar shattered and the Nome scuttled free, coming forward to hug her around the knees. She gave it a quick squeeze, but she could see the impending figure of one of the chefs coming steadily in her direction. She gave the Nome a little push toward the shadows and bolted out the door, snatching the key up as she went and ducking through a ventilation hole into the kitchens. The chef continued on to the pantry, glancing about suspiciously. Six let loose a pent-up breath and continued to the larger kitchen area, skirting the second chef who was bubbling to himself about nothing, and climbing up the short stairs to the locked door. The key fit perfectly and Six let herself in.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

**Oh, mirror, mirror how this face you show disgusts me!**

**Find me a child for whose youth my heart is hungry**

**\- 'Hungry for another one': by JT Music**

The Lady's chambers were dark, illuminated only by infrequent electric lamps or the light cast from the great fireplace. Books lined the walls on shelves, piled up in bunches in corners around the perimeter of the room, or lay scattered on the rich carpets as if cast away in disgust. The wallpaper was old, but tasteful, the adornment scarce, yet elegant.

All these sights went mostly unnoticed to the Twin Chefs as they stumped through, muttering to themselves in gurgling undertones. They were too busy bickering among themselves to notice the room's richness and too afraid to take heed of any books. The only thing that caught their eyes as they passed were the pictures of the Lady – svelte, young, and beautiful – which hung on the walls, staring down into the room as if asserting her dominance, daring anyone to speak against her. She was unmasked in the pictures. An unnerving sight, for the Lady had never appeared to anyone without a mask on. Seeing her in such a state, as lovely as she might be, almost seemed like an atrocious sacrilege. The chefs felt this with a shiver, hastily lowering their faces to avoid looking at her dark, fearsome gaze, hurrying past as quickly as they were able.

The chambers were vast and the corridors between them labyrinthine, yet the two persisted, often stopping to debate the direction, arguing, but never daring to raise their voices higher than a murmur. Their eyes constantly roved, an unexpected shadow causing them to shrink, or an unexplained noise making them jump. Danger seemed to be around every corner, yet after each scare and an additional moment of hasty scanning, they always continued.

"I assume you have a valid reason for coming here." The Twin Chefs jumped and twirled comically, trying to find where the voice had come from. One saw and bumped the other and they both stared up at the Lady, looking down on them from over the railing of the next level. "…Uninvited," she added languidly, and they both winced.

The chefs both began to grovel, grunting out apologies and blubbering explanations, all of which seemed to go unnoticed by the Lady. She simply placed her book back on the shelf and began to descend the spiral staircase, the hem of her skirt rippling as it met the ground, her hand tracing the ancient, delicately carved bannister. Her white porcelain mask shimmered, a bright contrast with the darkness around, almost seeming to shine with its own light.

Soon the Lady stood before the chefs, and the distinction in their appearances were remarkable. In contrast to the fat, drooping, slobbering creatures before her, the Lady stood erect and silent. Dark, but beautiful, her hands folded into her sleeves, terrible as an executioner.

"Remove your masks," she said at last.

The chefs hastened to obey, their clumsy fingers prying off the rubbery masks and displaying their true faces. Even though their masks were very much like their true faces, the masks had become so familiar that it felt uncomfortable not to wear them. The twins stood before the Lady as if naked, ashamed of their appearances. If they could guess her expression, they thought she might have looked on them in scorn, her lip curled and brows lowered. As it were, they could only see the flashing of her eyes.

The Lady's gaze flicked from one dejected face to the other. Their true faces, almost as hideous as the masks which had hidden them. Similar, but not quite the same. Drooping, puffed, disfigured. Behind her mask, the Lady almost allowed herself to smile. Neither of them could hold a candle next to her. How beautiful she must seem next to them. How pristine, how well-crafted and sublime. She stood a little straighter just thinking about it.

"Why have you come?" she asked.

One brother knocked the other with his elbow, nudging him a little further. This almost caused an argument, but one look at the Lady caused all anger to subside. The chosen representative bowed his head, his false face wrung between both his hands in his anxiety.

"M… my Lady," the chef started with a stammer, talking much more clearly without the mask but still with an asthmatic gurgle in his throat. "Great one, wholly esteemed sovereign of the Maw, keeper of the Sacred Power and lord over us all…" He stopped to gauge her expression. There was none to see. "…We… my brother and I… have seen the child."

"She has arisen, then?" The woman turned aside to peruse the books on a nearby shelf, to all appearances disinterested. Only the keenest viewer could catch the slight tremble that betrayed her.

"Yes, M'Lady." The brother stepped back.

"How long ago?"

The first brother knocked the second forward. His turn, now.

"Not long ago, my Lady," the second brother quailed, bowing, even though her back was turned.

"How close did she appear?" The firelight shimmered off the porcelain mask, displaying no blemish. The Lady opened a book and appeared to scan a page, her finger rustling as she drew it down the paper. "Was she far away, or close by?"

The second chef gave an anxious look back at his brother. "C… close, I would say, my Lady."

"Did you see her clearly?"

"Yes. Yes we did, my Lady."

"How many times?"

Both chefs froze. "My… my lady?"

"There are two of you." The Lady's posture had not changed, yet a shard of ice had needled its way into her voice. "Between the two, how many times would you say you encountered the child?"

The second chef shot a panicked glance backward, but his brother did not seem any more inclined to answer the question than he was.

"I'll make it even easier for you," the Lady added, her face still dipping towards the book. "Once between the two of you? A few times? Or more?"

"M…" the chef seemed to have difficulty getting his throat to work. "M… I would have to say… m… more."

The Lady's hands closed, slamming the book shut between them. The second chef jumped backward to stand next to his brother. Both of them trembled. A black ire seemed to be growing around the woman, leaching into the air, throbbing with a powerful strength. "Many times." Her voice was flat as she turned to face them, the book dropping forgotten to her side. "You saw her many times and yet you did nothing?"

"We tried, M'Lady, we tried!" gurgled the first brother, cowering before the Lady's wrath.

"She was just so quick!" cried the second, putting his hands before his face to shut out the image of the white mask, printing its afterimage into his brain. "She snuck beneath the floorboards, out of the garbage when we weren't looking! She even climbed the rack of plates we had been washing to get to the pulley system! We ran after her and threw things at her, but she was still too quick! Nothing we could do made any difference!"

The Lady paused inches away from their blubbering faces. It was a terrible sight, it was true, but how much more terrible would it seem to them with her mask so close before their eyes?

The air began to pulse with a demonic presence, the entire room fading away as darkness filled it, flooding from the Lady's figure until nothing remained to be seen but the emotionless white mask. The chefs whimpered as their own masks dropped unbidden from their hands and they felt their feet leave the floor, the darkness twining around them, constricting, their heavy weight seeming as nothing as they were lifted upwards. Their blubbering apologies were stilled as their throats closed and even though they thrashed, no movement came from them except a frantic twitch.

"I saved you from the Maw," The Lady's voice whispered. "You were not chosen as guests, but I allowed you reprieve from your sentence. I gave you the masks to make you like the others although you bore the unblemished appearance of the unchosen. And why?" The chefs twitched again, but the Lady did not wait for an answer. "Because I saw your potential. Yet you squander my mercy. You fret and squabble amongst yourselves like pampered children, making light of your circumstances. You have become spoiled and lazy. Insolent."

The chefs struggled, hands clamped to their throats, pulling for every meager breath. All they could see was the mask. That shining mask. All else had faded into darkness, and yet it seemed as if the darkness was preferable to this.

"I asked two favors of you." Oh, but the Lady's voice was ice. The fires of Hell could not melt the rigidity of her tone. "Feed my guests. Be good stewards of the kitchens I made you lords over. That was the first task. And I told you…" The Lady's tone became, if anything, even colder, "…That if you ever found a girl in a yellow raincoat wandering around your kitchen, that you would kill her immediately and without hesitation. That you would prepare her body and bring it to me so that I might feast on her heart. Two simple requests, and yet you neglect the one and fail the other. Tell me, what reason is there that I should not end your sorry lives right now?"

The brothers could not speak. They could hardly even breathe. They attempted to motion with their hands, but they seemed affixed to their throats. Even the mask was becoming dark now, fading into the nothingness that awaited in the blissful rest of the unconscious.

And then they fell to the ground, groveling on hands and knees, gasping as the darkness curled back into place leaving the room in stark relief. The Lady stood above them, the eyeless holes in her mask staring down on them in assumed disdain.

"However," she continued in a slightly slower tone, "you are not entirely useless. After all, you have done an adequate job of providing for my guests."

"Yes, M'Lady, yes!" the twins babbled, standing and bowing, picking up their masks from off the ground.

"And yours has not been the only failure," mused their mistress. "My Janitor has also failed to capture the child, but he is old and blind. I would have expected more from two younglings with all their senses." For the first time, her voice snapped. Afraid of the dire consequences, the brothers resumed their muttered apologies, bowing with twice the fervor. "Still," resumed the Lady, regaining her semblance of calm, "it may be that we have underestimated the girl. Or that I have overestimated you. Either way, it is in the past, now. We can only wait to see what will happen next. Go." She raised a hand, pointing toward the door, which opened at her motion. "My guests will arrive soon and we must make certain that all is prepared. Mustn't we?"

The chefs, altogether amazed that they had gotten off as lightly as they had, backed out of the door, still bowing. The Lady closed the door behind them, feeling a strange weariness steal over her body with the absence of anger. A weariness that had been growing with every new dawn.

_I'm getting old_, she thought, and was startled to discover how easily the thought came to mind. She banished it, ripping off her mask and standing barefaced in front of one of the portraits. Almost she could picture it as a mirror, the lovely face in it as her own was now. Almost she could convince herself that the face in the portrait and the face she wore beneath the mask was her true face. The true semblance of her beauty. To any outsider, those two faces would seem the same, for the Lady's smooth white skin seemed untouched by time or blemish. But the Lady knew better. She closed her eyes for the portrait's gaze seemed suddenly mocking and with her eyes still closed moved between the bookshelves and into the nearby corridor, walking with such grace that anyone watching would assume she was feigning blindness.

The Lady did not open her eyes until she had reached the room of her desiring, and then only to stare at the porcelain mask in her hand, unwilling to raise her eyes. When she did, it was only a little to stare at her feet in the unbroken, floor-length mirror before her. Her shoes, at least, were safe to stare at. A little higher, perhaps. Her eyes alighted on her skirt and she admired her shapely form. That, at least, hadn't changed. Higher, even. Her bodice and high neckline displayed nothing new. It was with great trepidation that her eyes rose again, unwillingly looking deep into her own face.

That which normal eyes could not perceive was reflected in startling clarity in the mirror. The bags beneath the eyes and lines on the forehead that were absent in the mortal plane were displayed in the reflective surface. The grayish, dying hue of the skin, liver spots and folds of sagging flesh seemed startlingly acute in the dim light.

The Lady looked at her own reflection with the sinking, twisting feeling that always accompanied any revolting sight, wishing she could rip her eyes away, but unable to make that move. _I am old_, she thought again. _Although_, and here she placed a hand to her smooth cheek, watching as her warped reflection did the same to its own rough, sagging one, _nobody can see it for themselves_. _To all others I am beautiful. To myself… how long can I play the fool to reality?_

She clutched at her mask, the reliquary of her powers. Without it, her powers would become unrestrained. Not gone, but rogue and wild. With it… she was a goddess.

_I am the only one who knows_, she thought again, but a noise behind her drew her attention. In the mirror she saw a small form, that of a child, staring in unrestrained abandon at her true face. The woman screamed and the mirror shattered, the light dousing as she slapped the mask back to her face, disappearing from the room as the darkness moved her away.

_Could it be real?_ she wondered, gasping for air. _Could it finally have happened? Could I have been found out so easily?_

Just as quickly, her fear was replaced by rage. An icy, burning, undying range. How dare he? How _dare_ he? How dare any of them? How could they have let slip such an insignificant creature and let him wander into her room? Was nothing sacred anymore?

She followed the boy, letting him know that he was being watched. A cruel pleasure prickled her fancy as she rustled by, peering from the darkened recesses of her chambers, leading him further in until he stood inside the centermost chamber. Then she lunged.

The Lady's magic wrapped around the boy's form, pulling him up off the ground, lifting him to eye level. The Lady's voice was no more than a hiss, barely reaching over the boy's frantic gasps as he struggled. "How dare you?" she questioned softly.

"'M sorry," the boy said, not even raising his eyes to look at her face, still twisting in her grasp.

"Look at me," she commanded, and the boy did, his eyes mostly hidden behind a sheet of rumpled brown hair. His look was rebellious without a shade of fear. The Lady hated him, then. How dare he look on her with such equality? Did he know who she was? What she was capable of? Her grip on him tightened, but he only clenched his teeth a little more.

"I know…" he huffed.

"You know what?" The Lady breathed.

"I know… about the Nomes," he whispered, hardly able to breathe.

Behind the mask, the Lady smiled, a pinched, sour look. "Do you really?"

"There's a furnace down below… where the Nomes work," he gasped. "They all gather around it… and," here he gasped again, "…and in its light… they can see who they once were. And… and so could I." His rebellious gaze lifted again, its glare cold and accusing. "They were children once. All of 'em. All the ones who tried to run away. And… and you sapped them for their powers, didn't you? Everything that used to make them a child you sucked out and now they're just husks, aren't they? You did that! You did that to them!" And he gave another savage twitch. Not that it did any good, of course.

The Lady nodded sagely, walking a slow circle around the levitating boy. "Very good. You have done your homework." And she let her grip loosen, just a little. The boy gasped in deep breaths of the stuffy air.

"So then," the Lady continued. "Since you know what happen to the runaway children who come across me, and since you are one of those children, you know what happens next."

"But I've come farther," argued the boy. "All the rest of the kids, they must have been caught farther down and brought to you. Or you came across them on an inspection or something. But not me. I made it all the way here by myself." And now there was a shine of triumph and pride in those previously rebellious eyes.

"And you think that deserves some type of reward?"

"I'm just saying. I'm not just another common meatbag." The boy looked at her from under his dark hair, seemingly nonplussed but she could feel the rapid beat of his heart.

The Lady scrutinized the boy, placing a finger underneath his chin, tipping his face this way and that. He matched her gaze, staring deep into the sockets of her mask. "You're right," the Lady said at last. "You're not one of the common canaille. What is it that you want?"

"I want to be free," said the boy. "I want to go up to the surface. You never have to see me again. I won't ever speak of this place, I won't ever try to come back."

The Lady scoffed a light puff of air into the stagnant room. "How do I know any promise of yours can be honored? Why not ask for a position among my servants? You are a smart young boy. With the use of my powers, no child would be turned into a Nome again. You would make sure that they would stay safe where they belong. Away from me."

The boy seemed to consider this, but shook his shaggy head. "Even if I wanted to… even if I asked, you wouldn't."

"How could you be so sure of that?" the Lady purred.

"I know too much," said the boy. "I've seen too much. I'm a wild element that can't be controlled. You know that. You hold it against me that I saw your face. And I have other knowledge, too. I know your weaknesses and you don't want it getting out."

"What weaknesses?" There was a shard of ice in the woman's tone as she brought her mask closer to the dangling boy.

"The girl," said her captive. "The one wearing a yellow coat. I don't know how or why, but… you fear her. And she's coming for you."

"You… you have seen her?" And now the boy could feel the tension in the woman's tone and thought that he had guessed correctly.

"Some time back. I talked with her. She's moved on since then, but I've heard the whispers. The Nomes have pictures of her all over their walls. She's like some sort of… goddess to them."

The magic constricted around the boy again. "I am the only goddess," hissed the Lady.

The boy had the audacity to smile, even as his eyes almost popped out of their sockets. "Not the first, and now not the last," he whispered.

"You…" growled the Lady deep in her throat.

"See? You can't keep me around with that knowledge," coughed the boy, still trying desperately to barter, even though he knew that he might have gone a few steps too far. "I've proven myself to you. I'll keep quiet. Just… let me go!"

"The only thing you've proven," murmured the woman, her voice as slow as the progression of venom through the veins, "is how dangerous you are. And how idiotic you can be about the knowledge you hold."

The boy's breath was choked from his lungs and he began to contort in panic. "You think yourself above the rest, do you, boy? Well, let me remove that notion." With glee, she began to breathe in, her magic sapping the boy of everything he might once have held dear. Old memories. His will. Imagination. Cunning. Cleverness. Wit. And then finally his form was reduced to a small, cone-headed little creature slumped on the floor in the midst of the boy's now too-big clothing. The woman breathed out, enjoying the new flush of energy the boy's potential had given her, laughing sourly at the trembling creature on the floor.

"Run away, little one," she said, flicking a hand at the creature and watching it scurry away, wriggling out of the pile of clothes and scampering toward a crack in the wall for escape. "Let's see how that savior of yours treats you now that you are one of the 'meatbags'."

The Lady smiled to herself. Goddess? Hah. As if that little girl could do anything for anyone? How could she think that any of her exploits could turn fruitful? Sooner or later that little girl would learn that she, the Lady, was the only goddess.

* * *

**A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry for the late update. I have been very busy over the last few weeks and slightly blocked in the imagination and writing department. Thank you for being patient. That being said, my updates aren't going to be that consistent from now on because I'm not sure I can commit to getting a chapter out per week, but rest assured that I have NOT given up on this fanfic and I DO intend to finish it, but it just might take a little longer than I thought.**

**Also, I loved writing this chapter, even if it took me a trip to Starbucks and a few hours alone to complete it. Tell me what you think down below.**

**Thanks again, my readers! Until next time!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

**They don't even need to eat, this is all grotesque!**

**-'Hungry for Another One' by JT Music**

Six had been walking along the large metal pipe for what felt like ages. Her legs ached, especially in that one spot where the back of her leg had been hit by a bottle thrown by one of the chefs. They had seemed so stumpy and slow! How could they have been so fast?

Six yearned to rest. Her entire body pleaded for a break. But stronger than the desire to rest was the call of the spot of light far off in the distance, growing brighter with every step she took. A pale, cold light it would seem to most, but to Six it seemed like the most beautiful gleam in the world. Just looking at it made her increase her speed, trotting along the pipe, trying not to slip on its slick surface.

As she continued onward, the glimmer seemed to rise until it was high up, a wall manifesting out of the darkness, the glimmer shining through a crack up above. Six's heart plummeted as she realized that the wall was too slick to climb, but her spirits rose again as she discovered an iron ladder set into the wall itself. _I didn't even wish for this one_, Six thought, grasping the first rung and pulling herself upward.

The gleam grew brighter as Six climbed toward it. Her eyes began to smart from its light, but still she climbed toward it.

_Just a little further_, she encouraged herself. _Just a little more._

And then the light consumed her as she climbed through the crack. Six was almost blown backward by a gust of wind, warm and wet and filled with the smell of salt. A damp saltwater mist sprayed over her and Six clamped on tightly to her perch as everything swayed and rocked more violently than ever.

_So I was on a boat all along_, Six thought.

Now that her eyes had adjusted, Six looked out in wonder over the vast spread before her, drinking in this first taste of the outside world. The sun shone down over the sea, dappling everything in gray and green and gold and blue. The riotous call of sea birds, white and noisy, filled the air, along with the slap of water against the side of the ship and the hiss of spray spewing into the air. It would have been a perfect scene, except that the ship Six seemed to be in was not the only watercraft around, for another dark, smoking boat bobbed beside it, a dark blemish on the stainless ocean.

Six stared up at it, her eyes offended by its presence. Her hole was low, close to the water's surface, and the sea spray was thick, misting her sight, but through its fog she could see many squat, stumping figures walking the gangplank from their own ship into the craft she was in, flooding in like weeds drifting on a tide. Six stood and began to climb the ladder affixed to the outside of her ship, watching the flow of people as if mesmerized. So many of them – it seemed like the parade would never end!

Men and women, Six realized as she came closer and the salty blur faded somewhat. No children. All of them gross and overweight with sagging faces, shuffling as if each step would be their last, but none of them stopping. They murmured among themselves, but Six could not catch a single word. All she could do was keep climbing and watch their progress as they stumped forward, eyes fixed ahead.

And then Six reached the top of the ladder, another crack promising another plunge into the Maw. She faltered, glancing back at the other ship, weighing her options. The sunlight was so bright, so tantalizing. Did she really want to go back just now? Back to the darkness and the torment? It was so peaceful up here.

But deep inside was the urge that had been growing ever since her adventure. The unnamed desire that pressed her on spoke and told her that what she was looking for was not on the decks of the other rugged ship but back inside the place where she had just escaped. For whatever reason, she wasn't done there yet.

Six soaked up a little more sun before plunging back inside the dark hole, breathing it in like a man sucks in a breath before diving into airless water. After even a little time outside, the Maw seemed stuffier and darker than ever, but Six did not turn back. _I will see the sun again_, she promised herself. _After I do this, I will._

It never even occurred to her to question what her secret mission was, or that it was a secret even to herself.

…

Six couldn't help but wonder if her eyes had been permanently affected by her brief stint in the sunlight, for the innards of the Maw seemed more shadowed than ever. She didn't dare hold her light aloft, however, for her view of the numerous guests plodding in unison had instilled a healthy respect for the darkness that hid her from view. If she, who had lived in the darkness for so long, was so bereft of sight, then how much so for the guests who lived their lives up above in the light?

Reassured by this, Six clung to the shadows, feeling empowered by her near invisibility. But then she heard the rolling sound of stumping feet and her security faltered. Even so, she pressed on even as the line of guests came into sight, lugging their own weight along the lighted and handrailed route, their pace never wavering.

Six stopped as her pipe ended below the raised walkway where the guests made their course. A decorative wooden screen separated herself from them, but it seemed so flimsy and then next to their hulking figures. She even doubted if it was stout enough to climb. Hesitantly she pulled herself up and waited for them to see her. Not a gaze drifted her way. It was if their eyes were fixed to the form in front of them, a never-ending parade of mindless followers intent on seeing their journey through to the finish. Even though they were close enough that Six could feel the heat radiating off their corpulent bodies, she took courage and began to ascend, keeping an eye on them in case their gaze should slide to another target.

"My people."

Six almost fell off her perch as the voice – a woman's voice – echoed into the almost-stillness. She gave a struggling half-jump into the enclave above and curled up into a boarded-up corner, clasping her hands around her knees, all senses gone to full alert.

"Beloved guests. Chosen ones," the voice continued. It was soft, almost as if spoken only in Six's mind, yet she could hear it clearly from outside her tiny hollow. "I welcome you yet again to the Maw." Six noticed that the figures stomping below her had become quiet, their murmurs more hushed. They were listening. "How long it has seemed, far too long, since I have seen your beloved faces. You, each and every one of you, have been selected out of the many common individuals to survive. And not only to survive, but to thrive!"

Six edged to a crack in the boards and peered out, searching for the source of the voice. When she saw, her heart gave a funny partial beat. She recognized that person. On a balcony overlooking the guests stood the Lady, just as mysterious and strange as she had appeared in her dreams. Her white mask shimmered in the darkness, reflecting the scant light that lit the balcony. She appeared majestic, regal even, looking with benevolent eye over her congregated assembly.

Six felt a strange feeling steal over her as she continued to stare. It was a feeling she could not put a finger on, but it felt too familiar to be nameless. Recognition was too simple and tame a word to describe it. Six felt as if she would have the same feeling if she stumbled across a mirror in whose reflection she would see herself covered in injuries and bleeding. Recognition? Yes. But horror as well.

The Lady continued to talk, her flowing, flowery words drifting into the still air, reminding her subjects just how fortunate they were to have found her favor. But as Six watched, she beheld a dark shimmer steal into the air, ebbing from the Lady's location over the watching crowd. It was intangible, barely perceptible and Six doubted if any of the other watchers could see it from their position, but she watched as the dark shimmer moved like mist over the crowd. Its effect soon became apparent, for the guests began to shift, their murmurs sounding discomforted. Some leaned over, clutching their enormous bellies and muttering toward their shoes.

"Now, come, my favored guests," concluded the Lady, raising her arms high above her head. Her trailing sleeves streamed like the wings of a great, dark-winged butterfly. "Come and celebrate with me. Dine at my tables, eat of my food, drink of my wine, and let us free our hearts of sorrow. Tomorrow may come, bringing its woes, but today… Today you shall feed!"

The guests, who by this point were shuffling with anticipation, gave a roar – or a moan, Six could hardly tell which – and lunged toward the doors. No longer were they slow and weighted. In their haste, they knocked into one another, staggering against their own bulk, forcing themselves to greater speed than their neighbors. Six watched in fascination, glad that she was not among them. _They would trample me for sure_, she thought, watching as a smaller guest was shoved aside and forced to crawl forward. Whatever could they be so excited about?

Curious about what she might find, Six squeezed between two slats in the boards blocking her and made her way into the next room, which seemed to house an upper level to the guests' area. She could see them rushing below her, the thunder of their footsteps making the boards tickle her bare feet. Less anxious than ever about them spotting her, Six moved across to the opposite balcony and pushed open a paper screen door just enough to let her enter.

Six's eyes had no trouble adjusting to the meager, warm light, and in its orangish tint Six could see several long wooden tables in the center of the room. Even though it seemed not to be in use – the chairs were stacked up in piles on the perimeter of the room – the table was completely covered with food. Hunks of meat, juicy pies, enormous sausages, sleek fish, puffed bread, bowls of stew… more food than Six could ever imagine sat stacked on the table in dishes, bowls, pots, pans, and any other sort of platter one could find. Some food had even dribbled off and lay scattered on the floor.

Six might have partaken of the free opportunity, but a noise distracted her. It had slowly been growing in volume over the several seconds when she had been standing immobile, gaining a startling intensity as she pricked her ears. It was a grinding sort of sound, a slurping and a munching, a chewing and a swallowing that made any sort of normal eating noise pale in comparison. It was the noise that a thousand starving wolves might make if they came suddenly upon a herd of cattle. Not just were they eating their food and enjoying it, they were devouring it as if it might be their final meal. Eating to survive.

Any sort of appetite Six had worked up shriveled immediately as she heard the noise. Her stomach clamped into a tiny clump and shivered inside her ribs. So, that's what the dark shimmer was, Six realized, unknowingly clutching the leg of the table just to have something to cling to. The Lady was giving them the Hunger so they would eat. But why?

This question went unanswered, and after that Six found it difficult to think any more thoughts. The smacking, munching, moaning sound had gotten too loud. The girl began to move forward, simply because the noise had grown too monotonous to bear lightly. As she passed into the next few rooms, she could see shadows behind the paper curtains; shadows of gelatinous mountains shaking with the effort of shoving as much food into their mouths as possible. A few more rooms in, she came across her first guest.

He sat propped up in one of the chairs, utterly absorbed in his meal. Six tried not to look directly at him, but it was difficult not to take a revulsive interest in just how much food the guest was attempting to shove down his gullet. He was almost choking as he fed, too much going in too quickly, bits of meat mixed with slobber spilling out the corners of his mouth and dripping on the table, mixing with more food, his saliva moving in a constant, sticky cycle from mouth to table to food to mouth. If Six's stomach could curl up any tighter, it did then.

When Six was certain that the monster's attention was fixed unwaveringly on his meal, she edged across the room, stepping softly so as to make no noise. The guest didn't even notice. He began to greedily suck the moisture out of a steak, eyes closed and mouth making a whimpering moan between slurps. Six slipped out of the paper doorway, which stood cracked open.

More guests in this room, just as revolting as the first, chowing down on their meal with even more vigor. Determined to cross this room as well, Six started forward, but froze when the beady fat-encircled eyes of the closest guest fell on her. Some buried part of her mind wondered if he would glance over her and move on with his course, and if by staying still she would be rendered invisible, but this guess was shown to be futile. His desire was beyond dead meat.

The guest's mouth opened in a savage scream and he thrust his table away, nearly crushing Six against the wall with its force. The little girl found herself surrounded by breaking plates and flying shards of what had once been bottles. The guest's main course rolled on the floor. His chair cracked beneath him, the legs splintering in different directions and the guest floundered on the floor like a fish out of water.

Six backed away, skirting the smashed table and attempting to stay away from the thrashing guest. Had she been at a safer distance, she might have laughed at his efforts, but as she stood not ten feet away from his clutching hands, she simply found it revolting.

And then disgust switched rapidly to terror as the guest, with a terrific heave, flipped himself over from his back onto his stomach, pudgy eyes filled with craving. With alarming speed he began to struggle toward her, feet kicking out behind him, hands clawing at the boards, dragging himself forward. His own weight seemed inconsequential compared to the reward of feasting on live meat.

Six's heart leaped with sudden fear and she sprinted away toward the far doorway. She heard the scraping shuffle of the guest behind her and heard his bellow of desire. This only spurred her to greater speeds as she pictured his swollen fingers wrapping around her, throttling her, pushing her down his throat to join the rest of his swallowed meal, never again to see the light of day. Determined this should never happen, she leaped forward into the next room, glancing up anxiously to make sure nobody else would join in the chase. Dark, mean eyes followed her progress, but none of the guests she passed seemed quite so desperate as the one behind her. Once or twice she saw large, thick hands clutch the tabletops as if preparing their owners to spring, but only the first guest made the pursuit.

_I need to go somewhere he can't follow_, Six thought, blindly running through room after room. _I can't keep running forever_! She gasped a little as she spotted her answer – a doorway leading to a raised level. For one of the giants standing on his hind legs this would be but a large step, but for one clawing his way forward on his belly, this would provide a far greater challenge. Six, daring to hope she was far enough away, took a running leap and pulled herself up, watching with dread as the guest slammed face-first into the incline, recoiled, and then attempted to heave himself up and over, grasping toward her with both hands.

He's too heavy, Six thought, giddy with adrenaline. He's too heavy. He's too heavy.

Even with this reassuring thought, Six did not linger to observe the guest's endeavors. The sight of an uncooked little girl might spur him to such frantic movement that he might just make it over the step, and Six definitely did not want that. Slipping beneath the table to avoid the munching guests in the room and still keeping a careful eye on her flailing assailant, Six moved on, but a quick scan of the room told her that she had reached a dead end.

_Trapped? _Six's mind started to panic. No. She couldn't be. Past the angry guest couldn't be her only way out! There had to be – _HAD_ to be another way!

There. Up high on the wall, a window to an adjoining room. Six tensed as she realized what she must do to get there, but the shuffling and whimpering of the guest at the door decided everything. Hissing in air through her teeth, Six slunk out of hiding and began to climb. First from the bench to the table. Then from the table to the stack of plates in the center. As she passed from one to the other, Six felt the burning gazes of the seated guests pass to her. The first, a male, lurched forward, arms straining, but was held in place by his enormous stomach. The second, a female, gave a gurgling scream, her eyes bugging. She reached upward as Six balanced on the tip-top of the plate pile, gauging the distance from her perch to the windowsill.

Then the male guest managed to knock the dishes with his hand and the whole pile shuddered. Six stumbled, trying to regain her balance. Seeing that his plan had almost worked, the guest let out a bellow and hit the dishes, harder. The topmost plate jostled. Six bit her lip. The guest, nursing his hand, leaned forward as much as he was able and began to push the stack, tipping them all over as the female guest cheered him on, completely oblivious to the fact that she was going to be covered in plate shards after the deed was done.

_Wait_, Six coached herself as the plates began to tip. Her eyes had spotted a lantern hanging over the female guest's head, between herself and the window. If she jumped now, the guest might pull her down, but with enough distraction…

_Wait…_

The plates began to slide.

_Wait…_

Everything was moving forward.

…_Now!_

Six jumped for the lantern. She heard the victorious yell of the male guest, which became completely overshadowed by the screech of the female and punctuated by the smashing sound of three dozen dinner plates crashing to the ground.

Six swung her legs, willing herself further. Even though she told herself she shouldn't look down, she did, and met the blubbering eyes of the female guest, trying to brush away the blood from her cut arms. Six didn't feel sorry for her then and felt even less sorry a moment later when the guest reached up and almost snagged her toes, her chair tipping backwards as Six propelled herself forward, letting go and landing safely on the windowsill, ignoring the woman's moans of irritation and pain.

Even though she was gasping with exertion, Six didn't dare to rest. This next room was larger than the others, a long bar taking up the back half of the room. Most of the guests were facing away and those that weren't seemed completely engrossed, but Six still didn't feel safe. All she wanted right that minute was a corner to hide in. Some place to take a deep breath.

_Please_, she thought. _Just a safe place. Please?_

Softly, so indistinct so as only to be thought a figment of the imagination, Six thought she heard a Nome. Her ears perked up and she began to scan the room, inching forward to see what she could find. Every so often she looked upward at the guests to make sure she hadn't been spotted, even though she would have been alerted immediately if it had been the case. But she made it safely across the room without incident, spotting an inconspicuous crack in the boards mostly hidden behind a stool. Pushing it aside, Six crawled between the slats.

Inside was another one of the secret rooms. A pipe stood off-center, several offshoots branching off in different directions like a warped metal tree, a bedraggled sock hanging off one of the pipes. Six wondered where the sock had come from, if it had belonged to one of the children in the beds so long ago and if it had been taken here by the Nomes. She wondered if the sock had been hung to dry, and watched as the ceiling dripped, countering this hypothesis.

A skittering noise brought back Six's attention and she snapped to awareness. The Nome, which had gone unnoticed on the other side of the room before now, peered out at her, its small, bony hands tapping nervously on the pipe between them. It circled the pipe as Six approached it, more skittish than any other Nome she had yet met. The little girl moved slowly, circling around to the old metal lamp in the corner of the room and flicking her lighter, illuminating the room as she touched the lamp's wick to the golden flame. Even with this reassuring prompt, the Nome only inched forward, its invisible eyes fixing Six with a suspicious stare.

_How rude_, Six thought with a huff as the Nome turned its attention to the fire. It squeaked as she picked it up, holding it tight in her arms as if trying to hug some warmth into its heart, but it merely dangled there, numb and unresponsive. It turned back to the fire as Six set it back on the ground, ignoring her as if she was nonexistent.

"I'm not like the others out there," Six said in a hushed voice, nodding out the crack where the gobbling of the guests could still be heard. "If you're afraid of me, you needn't be."

But the Nome didn't seem interested in discussion. It merely held out its arms to the fire.

"You should be grateful," pouted Six. "I hugged you. You were all alone until I came."

Still no response from her small companion. Only a sideways glance and a little shuffle closer to the lantern.

"I made that fire," said Six, tapping the lantern. "I could put it out. Do you want that? Do you want me to put it out? There, then!" And with that, she tipped over the lantern, letting it clatter over the floor, the tiny flame blinking out of existence with a tiny 'poof'. The Nome gave a chitter and backed away, looking at her resentfully.

"Do you like that?" Six demanded with a defiant step forward. "Do you like the dark?"

The Nome shuddered, and with a whirling about-face, fled out the crack and into the brightly lit main room. Six heard a bellow as the guests were alerted, the thunder of heavy movement, and saw shadows and light dance outside the opening. In a moment, the noise subsided and everything went back to normal, the guests' chomping and gurgling noises continuing as if nothing had happened. Six sat down on the cold wooden floor, knees drawn up to her chest. Alone. Alone in the dark.

* * *

**A/N: I'm baaaack! Sorry this chapter took so long to post. Life has gotten in the way of... well... everything, so it took me waaay too long to write this chapter. I'm not sure exactly when I'll be posting next, but I promise this story WILL be completed. It'll just take a bit longer than I expected.**

**Thanks to all you guys for reading, and I'll post... sometime. Until then!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

**My stomach is turning and churning with greed**

**Has someone cursed me?**

**I'm yearning to eat**

**I need something fresher than bread or dead meat…**

**-'Hungry for Another One' by JT Music**

Six was tired of running. As with her previous encounters, she no longer feared the creatures she ran from, but it was still necessary for her survival to move at a faster pace than those who chased her. The people at the bar, for example. Their sausage-like arms stretched toward her, oblivious to the bottles and plates in their way. She had to dodge splashing wine and rolling food as she hurtled their clutching fingers.

Then there was that one guest farther along who rolled off his stool and crawled toward her with startling speed, cramming himself under a gap in a banister that separated them. A gap that was far too small for his colossal bulk. Six, thinking quickly while he was wedged, jumped over his back and was rewarded with the sensation of sparsely covered bagging flesh squishing beneath her bare toes, lasting only a moment too long before she jumped off again, running in the direction the guest had come from and leaving him to back out of his self-inflicted prison alone.

Not long after that, Six had run into one of the twin chefs. Where the other had gone, she was not certain, but one was more than enough for her. After a round-about avoidance game, she had tip-toed back to the elevator, wincing at its rumbling sounds and keeping an ear perked in the chef's direction lest he should hear.

And now here she was, standing by herself in a relatively safe position – a T-section that led to another hallway. She was tired of hallways, tired of running, tired of being trapped in the dark, tired of the incessant urge to go forward, tired of hunger, tired of her feet hurting, and – most of all – tired of being tired.

But for now, it couldn't be helped. Six backed into the nearest corner, still keeping an eye on the elevator in case she would need to run again, and sat down with her knees pulled up to her chest. Her damp breath sighed warmly against her cold legs and she pulled them a little closer, resting her forehead on her knees.

_I want to sleep_, Six thought to herself, closing her eyes and letting the darkness settle. _If you sleep inside a dream, do you dream again or is it the same dream? And what if you die in that dream? Will you die in both dreams or just that one?_

Six moaned softly, allowing her head to dip even lower, straightening her legs and reaching inside her hood to cover her face. Her mind, sensing that she was overtired, was whirling with too many unwarranted thoughts, the filters that her brain kept in place when she was alert and watchful slipping, granting unsolicited thoughts to flood in.

_If I chop off my own head_, Six wondered blearily, _would the thoughts stream out? Or have they made their nest in my head and they're staying here forever? I hope not. It's too crowded in here. A few thoughts at least will need to move out. Why can't they bother anyone else? I'm trying…_

_Trying…_

_Trying to…_

**…**

In the timeless hole of the Maw, it was impossible to know how much time passed while Six sat slumped in a forgotten nook. Even she did not know whether she slept or merely passed in and out of a doze, the pitch and roll of the Maw reassuringly consistent. Even the guests seemed to have muffled their garbled noise while the tiny child rested.

Therefore, it was a startling nuisance when the scuffle of a Nome was heard nearby. Six's head jerked upright immediately, her wits coming back as she remembered where she was, collecting the wild thoughts that had plagued her as one might gather a handful of dried beans that had dropped to the floor and rolled, clattering on the floorboards. It took a moment to distinguish reality from fiction and Six gave her head a harsh shake as if trying to rattle everything therein back into place. She stood upright, trying to recall what had aroused her and where it had come from.

The skittering sound was heard again, through an otherwise silent rice paper curtain that was cracked just the tiniest bit. Six, swiping sleep from her eyes, ducked through. Many quiet, closed rooms awaited her, each one with another rice paper curtain concealing its possible occupants. Only one was open, and it was this one that she entered, and there she found a most curious sight.

The first thing she noticed was the surplus of Nomes in the single room, all standing in a semi-circle around the bed that stood against the leftmost wall. They gave a troubled wince as Six entered and fled, skittering into the various small exits they had no doubt entered from. Six made a grab at one, holding it tight, and it struggled for a moment before dangling limply in her arms. Holding it like a bedraggled kitten, Six turned her attention to the bed, trying to see what had intrigued the Nomes so much.

The largest guest Six had ever seen lay sprawled on the bed, his head propped with several pillows. As massive as he was, the bed seemed nearly unable to contain him. His hand drooped off the side of the bed, dangling into a bucket beside him. Six's eyes traveled up his girth – a very long trip indeed – and finally rested on his head, which was obscured by a dirty gray mask that grimaced in the darkness, the painted eyes bugging out with startling vulgarity. Six took a step back when she saw it, wrinkling her nose with displeasure.

At first, Six thought the movement she saw was a figment of her imagination. The guest's entire torso was moving up and down to his thick, wet breathing, that must have been all it was. But no. No, it couldn't possibly be imagination. The guest's face was turning down, slowly, slowly, to look at her. Six took another step back as those painted eyes rested on her.

_Perhaps he is still asleep_, she thought, clutching the Nome so tightly it made a muffled protest. _Perhaps he is only turning a little in his dream._

But then she saw the glint of real eyes behind the fake ones and put down the Nome, preparing herself to run.

"You do not need to fear me."

The guest's voice was soft but thick as if he was speaking around a dishrag that was stuffed into his cheeks. His words were muffled by the mask, but his eyes peered at her brightly. "You are the one the Nomes have been so excited about," he remarked. He gave a rubbery laugh that rippled down his entire body, letting his head droop to the side. "It would be on this day – my last day – that you would come. Listen, child. Listen to a dying man's confession. I must… I must speak before my time is up."

Six, although still apprehensive, found herself intrigued. Besides the cook's muddled attempt at luring her down from the kitchen rafters, nobody had tried to talk to her before, and certainly not in so cryptic a fashion as this guest here.

"I am old, now," the guest murmured as if to himself, "although I wasn't so much when the Lady brought me here. I was a designer for this place. The Maw came to life under my hands. I was the first guest. I saw… so many things. So many… terrible and wonderous things."

He gave a lurch in the middle of his sentence, his midsection fluctuating and rippling with his movement. Six watched him, awed by the way his massive cheeks bulged out from behind the mask, his double-chins wobbling as he spoke.

"The Lady had… has… she has such terrible powers. But not great enough. Not great enough, it seems." The First Guest gave another heavy laugh. It looked painful. "She once was beautiful – fair as the day and as shining as the moon at night. Geisha. Masterful lady. But then… she began to grow old. And she grew jealous of those who had her beauty. She…" Another deep breath, but it seemed as if he had a leaden weight on his chest. "She had me build this place for her people. Surround herself with ugliness so that she would shine like the brightest star. That was her plan. 'I shall feed them', she once said to me. 'They shall be my people and none shall oppose me.'"

Six found herself drawn into the magical mystery of the First Guest's woven tale and found herself relaxing just the tiniest bit, although she dared not take a single step closer to the First Guest's dangling hand.

"I did what she said. How could I not?" the First Guest continued. His arms seemed too leaden to lift, otherwise he might have drawn them woefully to his face. As it was, the hand resting on his bosom clenched a little before lethargically opening again. "Such sins… such sins I have committed. I dare not tell them to one as young as you. I sent your kind to the slaughter. Those with pretty faces were condemned. Children were harvested like animals, used for meat for the Lady's guests to feast upon, forced to provide their very souls for her delight. The Janitor was held over them like a caretaker, even though he prepared them for slaughter. The Lady orchestrated it all, giving him some of her own powers to hold them at bay. If I had dared to speak against her, would any have been spared? Or would I have joined the masses of the slaughtered? Would I have been one of the consumed? Ah, no. It is useless to wonder such things. Not now." He gave another lurch and a gurgle stuck in his throat.

"She called it an honor," the First Guest said when he had somewhat recovered and drawn several more compressed breaths. "When she took me from my station and made me her guest, she called it the highest of honors. But what she meant was that she knew… I had seen too much. This new honor of mine was my prison. I became like the others," and here he turned his face away with as quick and disgusted a movement as he could muster. "The others who slobbered like pigs at a trough, consumed only with the thought of shoveling as much as possible into their bellies, trying to sate the Hunger. She pressed it upon us," he whispered, glaring at the wall. "Her power, her magic… she forced the Hunger into us all. All of her chosen. I have eaten the meat of children and craved for more. I have drunk enough wine to fill the ocean and still thirsted. I told myself that I was not like the other guests because I knew what they did not… but is that a good thing? Am I more righteous than they because I know what I know… or am I worse?"

This last thought trailed off into a hiss and a choke wracked his body. The Nome standing beside Six tugged at her hand, but she drew it away, now utterly enthralled with this story.

"But… that is the way of the world," said the First Guest as if forgetting he had an audience. "The powerful succeed. The Lady was more powerful than I. I succumbed. I was more powerful than the ones I ate. They were devoured. And you…" The First Guest's eyes gleamed suddenly as they lit on Six again. "You are the one who will devour her."

"Me?" The single questioning word fell from Six's lips before she knew it, but somehow that one word empowered her instead of frightening her. She took a step forward, looking up defiantly into the First Guest's masked face.

"You are Sixth, aren't you?" asked the guest, and Six felt a needle pierce her heart. "She is Fifth. She took the powers of the one before her, leaving the Fourth wasted and bereft. The Lady insisted that I make her a lair deep in the lowest part of the Maw, and so I did. So she dwells – or dwelt, rather – this monster who once might have been so beautiful a lady as the Fifth became with her acquired powers. But even the darkest of whispers could not tell me who the First was, or how the Second acquired their powers. All I know is that it passes from the chosen one to the chosen one, from adult to child, adult to child. Why else do you think she gleans children to be consumed? She fears you, little Sixth. But she cannot stop you, no matter how hard she has tried." This time his laugh turned into a cough, which racked his body.

Six thought hard while the guest recovered his breath. It was true. It must be true. How else would he know her name? What else would this powerful urge mean if not the call of fate to uphold her destiny? Those powers were meant for her, for good or ill. She could cleanse this disgusting place, escape, live in the surface like she planned. Six felt a terrible excitement steal over her and her heart began to pound.

As she stood draped in heavy thought, the Nome crept away from her side to stand in front of the First Guest, touching his drooping hand. The guest coughed out a wet guffaw. "Reckless move, small one," he murmured. "Had I been under the Lady's spell I would have swallowed you in a heartbeat. But my time is nearly… over… now." He gasped for a fresh breath. "…And her magic has little hold on me."

His finger flicked out suddenly, sending the Nome to the ground. It scrambled up and ran out the door. The First Guest tracked its progress with his eyes, a huff of breath puffing through the mouth of the mask. "Perhaps that will teach you a lesson to beware," he whispered. "From me you might have gained a bruise, but from them you will most certainly lose your life. One last act of good before I go."

He huffed again, and the gurgle in his throat caught suddenly. He twitched, the hand on his chest climbing slowly up to the flab of his throat, the skin puffing out around his mask slowly turning a dark blueberry shade. Six backed up, her back hitting the wall. She watched, entranced, as the panicked twitch of the man's drooping hand stilled and he relaxed, his head dipping forward and the mask staring blankly at her, the eyes behind it lifeless.

Six stared at the man as if waiting for him to take another breath, but none came. _Death is just like sleep, but without breath_, she thought. _You can trust anyone when you're dead, because there's nothing they can do to you. It must be peaceful to be dead._

Nodding a little to herself, Six tiptoed out of the room, leaving the First Guest to his peace, alone.

Out of the room and down the next corridor she crept, still musing to herself about the words of the First Guest. Something niggled in the back of her mind – an unborn disturbance – and she tried to put her finger on the problem. Why was the First Guest so concerned about confessing before he died? Death came to everyone, ignoring good or evil people. Could people even be labeled 'good' or 'evil'? Well, probably. If you were very, very good, or very, very bad one could probably tell just by looking at you if you were one way or the other. But for someone in that mystical gray range like him, someone who wished he could do better but couldn't, did it really matter whether he told anybody in the end? When the only law of the Maw was survival, how did he know right from wrong, and why would he care enough to talk to her about it?

_It probably just made him feel better_, Six concluded, but it still made her uneasy. Her progress slowed as she dipped her head in greater thought. He probably would have told all the Nomes before she had come and frightened them away.

Ah. And here was another issue. The Nome who had tried to hold the dying man's hand had been flicked away, but in the name of good. That wasn't nice! Six argued, giving a nearby table a little shove with her hand. How could he call it good if it wasn't nice?

Then the disconnect surfaced and Six suffered an epiphany. Who said that niceness was goodness? The Twin Chefs had tried to be nice to her, didn't they? When all they wanted to do was grab and eat her. They weren't being good. So, in that way, maybe you didn't have to be good to be nice, just as you didn't need to be nice to be good!

_I wonder if there's a place where both things could happen at once_, Six thought, continuing with a somewhat lighter step. _I would like to have someone be nice and good at the same time. I doubt there's anyone down here that would do that._

Her mind switched again to the third issue the First Guest had brought up: he had called her by her name. Sixth, he had said, and just the thought made the little girl shiver. He said I will be the one who will devour her, she mused_. Well, I have been getting hungrier, but I don't think I could ever be hungry enough to try and eat her. She's far too tall! What would I do, try and bite her leg? She'd kick me across the room!_

The thought of herself sneaking across the room and throwing herself onto the lady's ankle, trying to chomp on it – not to mention the funny dance the Lady would make when found in such a situation – made Six giggle out loud. It was only a small laugh, but Six only realized when the noise around her faded that she had been surrounded with closed doors leading to chambers for guests to feast in and that even though the din of their eating was massive, the laugh of a child could scarcely be mistaken. Realizing she had just made the sound of their most desired delicacy, Six froze in her steps, hoping that maybe they would all settle and believe that they had made a mistake. This hope was promptly squelched, for the first door opened and several guests crawled out, now so bloated by their frivolities that they could not even stand upright anymore. Their faces sagged around their masks, but their eyes behind them lit up as they focused on her.

Six began to run. As she did, she could hear more of the doors and screens rattling open, the calls and screams of the pursuing guests building into a roar of noise as they gained on her. The old fear of being caught which she had judged to be gone regained its fervor and she thought instead of being crushed to death beneath a tidal wave of bodies, squished and broken between clutching, grabbing hands. This fear, perhaps, was a good thing, for it spurred her to greater speeds, staying just far enough away from her pursuers.

Six dared not turn around, but she could hear the guests' maniacal screeches getting closer as they rolled over one another, scratching and yanking their fellow hunters in an unseemly effort to get closer.

The bar, Six thought desperately, seeing the long, sturdy countertop ahead. Perhaps I'll be safer up there!

But hope was again dashed as soon as she gained its surface, for the guests, giving a horrible wail, began to ram themselves against the nearest side. The sound of splintering wood filled the air along with the shrieks of the nearly victorious. Six's stomach plummeted and she began to run along the bar as guests piled onto it behind her, the horde gathering splinters in their hands, seemingly not minding any pain they might be going through just so long as they caught her.

Just a little farther, Six goaded herself on, seeing a lamp hanging in the darkness beyond at the end of the bar counter. Just a little more…

Now!

Six's bare feet left the countertop and she extended her arms, grabbing the lamp and swinging with it toward an adjacent guesthouse. She heard a trailing wail as one or two of the guests bashed through the protective fencing and fell down, down into the abyss below. Her swing ended, Six let go of the lamp and let herself roll to safety in the new house, landing awkwardly in a crouched position and falling onto her rear, hands propping her up in half-hearted support. Past the cover of the low-hanging roof she could see the shadows of the unhappy guests, moaning and weeping over the loss of their snack. If she hadn't been so out of breath, Six would have been tempted to get up and taunt them. It wouldn't have been nice of her, but – as she had decided a moment before – true niceness didn't exist here in the Maw, so why pretend?

The clustered guests began to disperse, whimpering, shuffling back to their feast. Six let herself rest for a few precious moments, lying down flat on the floor of the empty room, before rolling over and getting back to her feet.

This guest house, she noticed with relief, seemed to be empty. Perhaps guests were still coming and this house had not yet been filled, or perhaps this one was simply meant to stay unused. Either way, Six felt safer as she trotted out the door and down the corridor, still keeping an ear pricked for any sound of munching, all the same.

And then her ears began to ring.

A split second before the Hunger struck, twisting at her insides, Six could have sworn she heard the whisper of the Lady and saw her black butterfly sleeves lifting over the crowd, streaming with her dark enchantments. But then the pain became too great and she curled in, gritting her teeth and waiting for the ebb to fade.

_I need to find food_, Six thought to herself, clutching a hand to her stomach and scrambling forward. _Oh, if only I were still in the other guest house! There was plenty of food there! Plenty of pies and meats and—_

Her stomach made another growl, louder than before, and Six's knees hit the ground, her ears singing. She was absolutely ravenous, but all she could think of while the Hunger consumed her was of the last thing she had eaten. The rat. That squirming, juicy, scrumptious rat. Twitching in her mouth, squeaking as she pulled apart his flesh and fur to get to the meat inside.

Even when Six was able to stand and shuffle further again, the memory still haunted her. Her mouth watered and she drooled like a dog even as she shambled forward, hunched like a vulture. _Anything_, she thought. _I'll take anything._

The corridor ended abruptly and she stumbled into the next room. Most of it was dim, due to the spots swimming before her eyes, but the one thing that wasn't darkened was the center of the room. There, on the ground, lay a single sausage. Above it stood a Nome, the sausage's guardian. Six could hear as if through a long tunnel the sound of many other Nomes along the edges of the room scurrying about, but all she could see of them was a muddy flicker from the corner of her vision. The sausage Nome, however, did not seem as timid as the other ones she had encountered. He had a newness to him, as if he had just been born, although he looked no younger than the others Six had seen. He somehow lacked the fear Nomes had instilled in them, for he stared at her unabashedly and even took a step forward as if he wished her to recognize him.

Six's innards gave another wrench, almost sending her to the ground. She clenched her teeth, feeling as if every muscle in her body was screaming with tension, and stared at the Nome as if trying to say: _If you stand between me and my food, I can't be responsible for what happens next._

The Nome saw the baleful look and took a shaky step backwards. Through her haze, Six saw him turn, stoop, and pick up the sausage.

_Don't you dare run away with that_, Six threatened in her mind, her teeth still clamped tightly. _Don't you dare._

But the Nome seemed to have no such intention. Instead, he held out the sausage to her, stretching out his short arms as far as they could go, cooing encouragingly. Outside the perimeter of her vision, Six could hear the other Nomes' noises kick up a notch as if warning him away, but he would not be moved.

The Hunger drove Six forward, pushing her towards the meat. But as she reached out the Hunger whispered in her ear how revolting the sausage looked now. How dead and unoriginal. It would be like eating dust. Her hands moved a little faster and she lunged, closing around the meat, pulling it to the ground, digging in with her teeth. She could hear the Nome's anxious cries somewhere in the distance, but she paid him no mind. She was too famished. Blind with Hunger, she tore in, ripped, guzzled the juice, and went back for more. Something inside told her what she was doing, but until the Hunger once again died down to nothingness, Six did not care. But then it did, and Six – on her knees – inched backward to survey what she had done.

The Nome lay on the ground, ripped open by her teeth, skin pulled apart by her hands. The innards that hadn't been devoured dribbled out of his cleft abdomen. He looked curiously flat, like this, with nothing inside him. The sausage the Nome had offered to her lay unscathed on the ground, far off to the side, unnoticed and unwanted.

Six could only stare at this gruesome sight, a disconnect in her mind. _He was alive just a moment ago_, she thought. _He offered me that sausage. Now he's—_

Six looked around as if scanning for witnesses, her eyes darting about like a rat's. The Nomes she had heard a moment ago warning the sausage-holding Nome to beware had all vanished. She couldn't see a single one.

_Did they see me?_ Six wondered. _Do they know?_

Yes. Of course they had seen. Of course they knew. The Nomes saw everything in the Maw. She doubted she'd be seeing much more of them after this, though.

Something wet and rubbery rolled between her fingers. Six looked down and saw a shred of intestine, bathed in grayish blood, held tightly between her fingers. Six cast it away. Now that the Hunger was gone, she heaved, but her throat wouldn't let anything come up. It was as if it was stating that its prize, now won, would not be taken away so easily. Six dry-heaved for a minute or so, scrubbing her stained hands against the wooden floor and against each other, spitting on them to gather enough moisture to cleanse the blemishes.

_It's not my fault_, Six thought, gritting her teeth and crossing her arms to hide her defiled hands. _It wasn't my fault. The Hunger made me do it. I wasn't strong enough to stop it. I was aiming for the sausage, really, I was!_

But lying to herself only made her nausea worsen. Deep down she knew that if the chance was given to go back in time, her hands would clench the same way, her teeth would gnash, and her hands would be stained again. Just like now.

_It was the Nome's fault_, she told herself next. _The strong eat the weak. The Maw has been trying to eat me ever since I woke up. It was the Nome's fault for not running when he saw what was happening to me. If he wanted to be the strong one, he should have left me with no choice but the sausage. _

But could she blame him? Could she really, truly blame that innocent creature for trying to help? A few hours ago, if she had encountered him dying of starvation, she would have held out that sausage just as he had done for her. _We didn't even know each other_, she thought. _But he still tried to help me._

A strangled breath escaped her lungs, too garbled to be a sob.

"I had to," she whispered out loud. "I had to. I'm not sorry."

_I'm not sorry._

_I would've died otherwise._

_I'm not sorry._

_The strong eat the weak._

_I'm not sorry._

_It wasn't my fault._

_I'm not sorry._

Repetition can make untruth seem true, but even as Six repeated these mantras over and over in her mind, she still couldn't convince herself that her actions had been right.

_There is no wrong in this place._

_I can't be wrong._

_I didn't do wrong. _

_I'm not sorry._

And with that final claim, Six pushed herself back onto her feet, jaw tight. Without another look at the hollowed Nome, she exited the room.

* * *

**A/N: I liiiiiiiiiiiive!**

**Ok, so I know it's been a while, but I'm determined to get this fanfiction done. I'm not sure when the next chapter is going to come out, but I promise that I'll finish this story... eventually. I've lost a little of my inspiration, but I'm trying to get into the habit of writing a little each day, so I can definitely promise you an ending. Thank you guys for sticking with this even as I bumble through my life. :)**

**See you guys in the next chapter!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

**This nightmare ain't over**

**I'll watch my window for the morning sun**

**I know when it's over**

**I'll just be**

**Hungry for another one**

**-'Hungry for another one' by JT Music**

Six peered between the floorboards at the Lady. Her rigidity verses the fluidity of her movements made Six think that perhaps she had received some bad news and was going to think it over.

_Maybe she heard news of me_, Six thought, her little hands clenching on the strands of a nearby rug. _Just like the First Guest said. She's scared of me._

Without a backwards glance, the lady glided into the elevator, the swish of her train the only sound in the stillness. Six couldn't even hear the Lady's feet tap on the ground. _But then, is she really walking?_ Six questioned. Her long skirt hid any semblance of legs the Lady might have. She might be floating, legless above the ground. _What if she started to tip over? _Six wondered. Eager to see the answer, she turned her attention more aptly to the Lady, but to her disappointment the object of her attention simply raised her chin and the elevator doors closed, beginning their ascension.

The pull in Six's heart only became stronger as the Lady disappeared and she wriggled from her hiding place, tiptoeing to the foot of the elevator. The activating button was above the reach of her arms, but Six amended this quickly by throwing a nearby decorative jar to press it for her. As the elevator rumbled back down, Six wondered suddenly if standing directly in front of the doors was a wise idea. But they opened soon, displaying the elevator empty and entirely at her service. Six stepped in and was immediately swallowed by the room, the doors closing behind her.

It was dark in there, but the lift was not as rickety as the open one in the Janitor's lair, or the one the chefs used by their kitchen or in the guest house. Six could hardly feel the movement as she was borne upwards.

When the elevator coasted to a halt and the doors slid open with a rustle of wood panels, Six disembarked, cautiously peering about. The first things that caught her eye were the four or so mannequins arranged decoratively along the walls. Six's mouth quirked and she shot them a suspicious glare. After a thorough appraising, she let them be, but their presence still gnawed at her like an unanswered question at the back of her mind.

The soft thump of Six's feet on the wood flooring became muffled as she trotted onto the rug stretching down the hallway. She followed it, digging in her toes and enjoying the soft sensation. Everything here was eerie. The purple wallpaper, flaking from disuse. The uncanny stillness after the guests' incessant chomping. The pictures, dank and discolored. Six was particularly unnerved by the picture of a single eye looking straight down – seemingly at her_. If that eye moves to follow me, I'm throwing something at it,_ Six thought, edging past. It did not move in its painted socket, and Six let it be.

At the end of the corridor was a wide set of carpeted stairs. About ten steps up led to a large door, which was locked by a padlock when Six inspected it. The little girl let out an irritated snort and turned her face up to the next ten steps, then the landing, and the final steps that led to the next level. _The key must be up there somewhere_, Six decided, and began to climb.

There were a great many pictures on the walls above the stairs and Six examined them as she ascended. More pictures of eyes – which seemed to be a theme – but also some strange photos of people were in the mix. A boy. A girl. Five humans in a row, the Lady predominant.

Six turned her attention away, pondering what it all could mean. The door at the end of the upper landing was cracked open and Six crept toward it as quietly as a mouse. No sooner had she squeezed inside then a sound reached her ears. The sound of a song being hummed. In another circumstance it might have been a pleasant noise, but here in these drafty chambers it was as unnerving as a chanted ritual. Worse, Six realized she recognized the song. It was the same song that droned in her ears whenever the Hunger struck. This song was the sound of the Lady's magic.

Six froze in the doorway, one hand resting on the door, halfway through the gap. The enchanting, alluring drone of the Lady's humming echoed in her ears, making her feel dizzy. A dread fell suddenly upon the little girl as she realized that she was intruding on the Lady's own personal chamber – her home turf, if you will. And not only was she in the dragon's lair, the dragon was at home, within seeing distance.

Was this worth it? Was any of this worth it?

But then Six's mind flashed back to that padlocked door and resolve overcame her dread. Why exactly she could not tell, but she must – she _must_ – go on. Slowly, softly, Six began to creep forward, letting the song muffle her steps.

Her surroundings as she crept by reminded Six again of a dragon's cave, yet instead of gold and jewels the dragon's hoard consisted of magnificent clothes folded neatly, stacked in tall piles when the overflow from their respective wardrobes and chests became too great. _The First Guest said that the Lady had been around for a long time_, Six thought as she continued to creep. _Perhaps she has a dress for every day she's been alive._

Before she could expand on this thought, Six rounded the corner and came into the closest proximity she had ever been to the Lady. Six automatically stopped as the Lady paused to take in a breath, every sense going on high alert. She could feel every splinter beneath her hands and feet as she crouched, palms to the floor. She couldn't blink even if she tried. Her ears rang with the hiss of indrawn breath. The scent of mothballs and old fabric was unbearable.

Then the Lady hummed again, the sound reverberating through Six's chest, and the little girl found the courage to move again. Something about the song awakened something primal inside of her. Something – for the moment – caged, but yearning wildly to be free. A strong desire to do something rash, reckless, not just because she wanted to, but because she could, free of consequences. There was a strong power inside of her, locked in a secret place, held deep inside, and as Six heard the song she thought she might explode. She trembled, overwhelmed by a powerful desire to seize this unknown power, and had she known where it lay she would have snatched at it without hesitation. But Six did not know. The power was not hers yet, no matter how much her inner heart screamed for it to be hers. No. Until then she would have to wait.

There. The doorframe was passed. The Lady vanished from sight as Six rounded the corner. Six gasped in a breath as if she had been underwater. Had she really not breathed all this time? The Lady's song still echoed hauntingly from the adjoining room, tugging at Six's heartstrings, but she did her best to ignore it, instead turning to the room and scanning it for the key.

This room was a bedroom, far less cluttered than the room Six had just left. There was a stately bed, headboard against the back wall, and a dresser, along with a couple plush chairs, one covered, one not, and a nightstand, but that was all for furniture. For furnishings, a few scant pictures – seeming duplicates of the other ones outside – hung on the walls. A few stood on the floor, covered in an opaque gray cloth. Six could only see the corner of the portrait, but turned away quickly, afraid of what she might see. The wallpaper was lumpy as if there had still been pictures on the walls when it had been laid down. Six could see the edge of a frame beneath the paper's surface.

Besides the pictures, there was one piece of decoration that seemed out of place. On the nightstand next to the bed was a white porcelain jar with the Lady's symbol – an open eye – engraved in blue on the cover. Six climbed on the bed and then to the nightstand to inspect the jar. Her fingers tingled as she put her hands on its smooth side and it crossed her mind that it might be made of the same material that the Lady's mask was. Filled with sudden hate for the familiar object, Six pressed her hands against the jar and sent it flying off the edge with a single sudden heave.

The singing in the adjoining room abruptly stopped.

Six tensed, crouched in a position that would allow her to flee should she find the need, but the Lady never came. Now feeling more anxious than ever and regretting her ill-judged tantrum, Six slipped off the nightstand and waded through the broken bits of crockery to pick up the jar's contents: a large brass key.

Key held tightly against her chest, Six tiptoed to the doorway and peered out. The Lady was gone. Six poked her head out and glanced around to either side as if expecting the Lady to have been hiding behind the doorframe all along. She was not, and Six tentatively set forward, each soft footfall seeming like the beat from a drum, or the beat from an enormous heart.

As quickly as she could, Six exited the room, keeping a harsh eye on each of the mannequins in turn as she passed them. Once in the hallway, she breathed a sigh of relief, seeing the entire splay of the landing and first floor in scant relief and hearing the heavy tick of the grandfather clock beside her break the silence. Feeling a shiver of excitement – or was it dread? – steal over her, Six set off to the mysterious door, thumping down each one of the steps in haste and setting the large key firmly in the lock. It turned almost of its own accord and with a snap, fell open. Six set her hand against the door and with a gentle push sent it swinging open.

It was dark inside. Very dark. Even with Six's lighter stretched out before her as far as her little arms could reach, the oppressive darkness still refused to be beaten back. The open door provided scant light and in its musty glow Six could see various items stored along the sides of the room: dressers overflowing with more clothes, and a variety of broken mirrors, more mannequins, crates, and other oddities. This seemed to be a storage room.

_But why was it locked away?_ Six wondered and took a few steps further in, her lighter held aloft. A musty gust of wind blew past her and the door behind her slammed shut. Six's light went out.

Six could hardly breathe. The fear, which had been pressing in on her since she had come to the Lady's quarters, suddenly overwhelmed her like a tide and she crouched on the floor, feeling as if she was being suffocated in the dark. It took her far too long to realize that she still had her lighter with her, and her shaking fingers slipped several times as she tried to ignite it.

There. Here was light. Six basked in it for a moment, her hands cupped around the tiny flame, fixing her eyes on only that for the time being, afraid that she would raise her eyes to meet the Lady's and that would be the last thing she saw before her life would end.

_Quiet, now. Quiet. Deep breaths, now, Six,_ The little girl coached herself as she gazed deeply into the flame. When she was feeling brave enough again, she raised her head a little to ensure that her surroundings were safe. They were all unchanged. Six's mouth pursed and her brows drew down as she stood. She wasn't afraid of the dark. She had been taken by surprise, but no more. No more.

Six continued further on into the darkened room.

The floorboards were rougher in here than out in the main chamber. The smell of dust rose from the mannequin's garments along with the scent of sawdust and mothballs. It was dry, at least. There was no smell of mold and no indication other than the ever-present rolling sensation that they were on a ship, but even that seemed to be less in the Lady's chambers.

The soft pad of Six's footsteps was all she could hear, but her ears still strained for any hint of motion, eyes peering off into the dark recesses of the room, refusing to be fooled by anything but the truth. It was well that she was so prepared, for no sooner did the swell of motion sound from behind her than the girl was off, head down, lighter cupped close, sprinting faster than she had ever run before. Behind her she could hear the swish of the Lady's dress, the hum of her magic as she glided after her.

It felt as if Six was running through porridge. The long tendrils of black magic were rising like a black mist from the floorboards, reaching out, stretching to grab her, or at the very least to slow her down. Six fought against them, her eyes fixed on a missing drawer on a dresser that left vacant hole – a gap in the barricade that kept her in.

Faster. Faster. Pull against the tide.

With a final desperate slide, Six dove into the gap, pulling through to the other side. She heard a screech behind her as the Lady pulled up short, but her magic swept through the hole like a wave on the beach. Six was overwhelmed in an instant, the darkness soaking into her clothes, her hair, her mouth, her nose. She couldn't hear. She couldn't see. Six continued to run blindly, coughing the magic out of her lungs, swiping with both hands, not caring if the lighter was burning her but only wanting the darkness to _GO AWAY!_

Six doubled over on the floor, the lighter extinguishing as she was racked with coughs. She knelt, trembling, on the wooden floor before pushing up off it again, forcing herself to continue forward, afraid of what would happen if she should not. Once or twice she looked backward over her shoulder to see if the Lady pursued, but there was no sign of her. Only the sting in her lungs and the fast thump of her heart reminded her that what she had just seen had been true.

Six winded her way through a semi-lit section of the storeroom, lighter still clamped between her two small hands. A flight of stairs rose before her and she took it, each step a stretch for her small legs to reach.

The darkness surrounded Six again as she reached the top of the staircase, raising her lighter above her head and biting her lip with apprehension. This new room was large, swamped in darkness. Another storeroom, it seemed. Only shadowy forms of the Lady's possessions could be seen, puled up along the farthest walls and huddled close to the support beams that disappeared into blackness before they reached the ceiling.

Six felt a tug in her heart that pulled her feet forward into the room, padding softly as her feet met the floorboards. A strange feeling urged her forward, like a rope leading a boat out into the water. Her heart began to thump, excitement filling her and making her feel suddenly as bold as a lion. Her fingers buzzed as she reached the far end of the room, a boarded-up doorway blocking her from what lay beyond. Had it been blocked with stone instead of wood, Six would have chipped at it with her bare hands to see what was hidden inside. As it was, the nails holding the haphazard wooden planks were feeble guards. Six tore them savagely from their place, squeezing through the gap as soon as she were able.

She stood in the room.

The first thing Six noticed was how utterly cold it was here. Just the mere distance of door to room made her feel as if she had stepped from a stuffy overheated house to a freezer. The cold didn't calm her fever, however. Instead, it seemed to stimulate it, forcing the senses of sight and hearing to be even more acute even as it overwhelmed her sense of touch, causing the roughness of the floorboards to numb beneath her toes and her breath to hiss in frosty clouds from her mouth.

_Where is it? Where is it?_

The question pounded in Six's head, even though she couldn't think of what 'it' might be. All she knew was that she would know it when she saw it. And see it she did.

An oval mirror with a tarnished gold frame lying on a faded pillow, which in turn was set on a low cabinet. Unlike the other mirrors in the room, and any other mirror that Six had seen in the Lady's chambers, this mirror was unbroken. Six climbed up onto the cabinet's surface and knelt beside the mirror, rubbing her hand across its sleek surface to wipe off the thin layer of dust that covered its face. A brief shine showed where her hand had crossed, and Six set the mirror upright against the wall, applying the sleeve of her rain jacket to the rest of the mirror, cleaning it until not a speck of dust remained.

The mirror was almost as large as Six, making the cleaning prosses a difficult, but no less fulfilling, task. It actually felt extremely satisfying to see the grime come off in thick, puffy strips. She wiggled her fingers into the niches in the mirror's frame, trying to make it gleam as it might have once upon a time, but no matter how she tried the frame never shone brighter than the mirror itself.

Once the mirror was clean of dust, Six looked into it, seeing herself clearly for the first time. She wasn't sure she liked what she saw: a scraggly little girl with her hood pulled down low over her face, the glint of eyes hardly visible inside the concealment of the yellow hood. All the marks her adventure had forced on her were clear to see in the exposing surface. Scrapes on her knees from multiple trips and falls. Bruises from throwing herself at the cage to knock it off its perch. Grime on her jacket. Blood on her feet. Sullied hands. But there was something else as well – a certain clamp of her jaw that hadn't been there before. A steel-hard resolve to move forward.

Six felt a chill move up her spine as she looked at this apparition in the glass. The girl she saw was unbending, unrelenting, had gone through too much to turn back now. As she watched, a small, twisted smile twitched the corners of the girl's mouth and she reached up to reassure herself that the expression was true to the one she wore.

_Mirrors can be cruel things, because the truth can be cruel_, thought Six, picking the mirror up in both hands, lowering it to the ground. She wondered if any of the guests could stand to look in the mirror. If they could stand to see what they had become.

Is that why all the mirrors were broken in this place? Could the Lady not swallow the truth of what she had become? Was the truth that painful to her?

Six extracted the mirror from the room, feeling the air warm as she exited. The mirror was still cold, like a sheet of ice clamped between her fingers. Even though she didn't have a full plan concocted, Six knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this mirror held the answer. It was coming with her.

The feeling that had led her to the mirror now ushered her to stay in the outer room. The Lady's presence was strong, but Six could not see her. Instead, it felt as if she were merely watching, observing what Six might do now that she held the mirror in hand. Six stopped in the center of the room, looking around with brazen calm, all fear suddenly banished. She felt as if she held a magic charm that forbad her to die. An all-in-one good luck charm that would not let her lose. In one swift motion she held up the mirror above her head in a taunt – a challenge that posed the dare, 'come and get me if you think you're able', and a glare that added, 'I'm ready'.

There was a sound like a long, drawn breath. The darkness began to creep in on every side, but Six stood her ground.

"You dare…" the Lady's voice spoke from the darkness like the beginning rumble of thunder. "Insolent child. You dare to come here to my very chambers… to the very center of my home. Have you no shame?"

The voice echoed around Six, and she raised the mirror, peering over its upper lip, in a slow, consistent spin just in case the Lady wanted to make an appearance. Once or twice she thought she saw the flash of a white mask. The darkness was pulsing like a tide kept at bay.

"Brats like you…" hissed the Lady, "…should be taught a lesson."

Suddenly corporeal, the Lady emerged from the darkness, mask shining as pale as a ghost. Six raised the mirror. The Lady's advance faltered. The shine of her mask was mirrored in the glass and the darkness surrounding her flaked like scraps of burning parchment. Six heard a scream like a demon in pain and saw the Lady recoil, her hands to her mask. Then the darkness drew away and Six was alone in the room again.

But not for long. A moment later and the darkness swarmed around her, thicker than ever. Six clenched her teeth together until they hurt, resuming her ready stance.

"You dare defy me?" The Lady's figure swam before Six's eyes, transparent and wild. She seemed to dissolve into mist, shifting, multiplying until Six couldn't tell what she was looking at anymore. She no longer was in the darkness – she _was_ the darkness.

Six spun around, bewildered by the shifting figures as one might be dazzled by light shining through a kaleidoscope. She could feel herself becoming dizzy, the ground seeming to roll beneath her feet with an even greater ferocity than before. She pitched, almost dropping the mirror. The Lady seemed to sense this and all of a sudden the white mask appeared in the swirl of blackness. Six raised the mirror just in time.

Another inhuman screech and a brighter flash than before. The mirror grew hot in Six's hands and she dropped it, tucking her scorched fingers close to her cold raincoat.

But she couldn't rest. Not for long. Not until this was over with. Tentatively, Six picked up the mirror. Its metal frame had cooled once more and she grasped it more firmly, holding it tight against her chest.

The Lady laughed. It was a harsh, cold sound that held no mirth, nasal and jeering. She had dissolved into the darkness once more. "Do you really think you can usurp me?" Six heard the Lady's voice reverberating in her head. "Do you think a shiny piece of glass will do what countless others have tried before? Do you know where they stand now? They all died long ago."

Six thought she saw a flash of white out of the corner of her eye, but it was gone as soon as she turned.

"Foolish mortal child. I took on this mantle knowing full well that others would try and take it from me. Yes, they tried, but with each of their failures I grew stronger. I wrapped myself in power like a man shields himself with armor. I am practically a goddess. And you WILL FEAR ME."

With these words, the Lady appeared again, but Six was ready with the mirror. The blast of power sent the mirror spinning out of her grasp and Six lunged after it, blinded by the flash of light. She could feel the Lady's presence creeping in, her slowly constricting circle of magic tightening like a noose.

Where was the mirror? Where was the mirror?

Six's foot hit against something. She grappled and the mirror was hers once more. Six dove back into the circle of light. The darkness snapped at her heels like hungry wolves, caressing the circle with misty hands.

"Why don't you speak?" the Lady asked, snake's venom in her words. "All the rest had noble speeches prepared for the moment that they would quench me. Some of them waxed quite eloquent. Why not you?"

Six merely tightened her jaw. When the Lady lunged again, she braced herself so that the mirror would not slip again. Even so, she still let it fall after it burned her hands yet again. A quiet hiss of pain was the only sound the Lady would hear from her.

"Do you think you are the chosen one?" the Lady's voice was now only a low rustle, like the rumble of distant thunder. "Do you think you are the sixth? Year after year I toiled to make sure that this never happened. That there would be no heir to this throne. Do you not understand what I have done? What I have become? How much I have sacrificed?" Her tone took a mad crescendo so that it echoed in Six's ears several seconds after it had been voiced. "But no." She was murmuring again. "You are a child." She spat the word. "You do not understand. You would have been better off in the service of my guests. They at least would have made your passing painless."

A whisper of white off to her left. Six raised the mirror, gritting her teeth as the mirror grew hot in her grip. The Lady's power flashed throughout the room and Six skidded to the floor. A pillar met the back of her head and she felt pain.

"But now…" the Lady loomed before her in all her terror and beauty, "you have chosen the path of absolute destruction."

Why was it so hard to move? Why was it so hard to breathe?

"Farewell, mortal child."

But as the Lady leaned her burning gaze toward her, Six's hand rested on the mirror. For an instant it seemed as if all creation held its breath, allowing her to move the fragile piece of glass between herself and the Lady. Everything moved so slowly. She could see everything so clearly. The mask, gleaming brightly in the dark. The Lady's eyes, illuminated in that light, widening just slightly as the mask that shielded that face began to shatter. The sound of cracking glass pierced the air.

Then everything went far more quickly than normal as creation exhaled again, making a noise like a scream, and Six felt as if a hurricane had decided to pick her up and throw her to the ground. She covered her face, because shards of mirror and mask were falling like sharpened raindrops from the heavens and all around her she could hear the screeching wail of a woman bereft of everything precious. The noise, the pain, and the chaos seemed to last forever.

And then it stopped.

Then everything…

…Stopped.

* * *

**A/N: I'm back, baby! Wow, that writer's block was hard to shake, but here's another chapter for you. There will be one final chapter (which I've already written, actually) but I won't be posting it for a few days to whet your appetite. Thanks so much for your patience!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10 - Epilogue**

**Gluttony has overrun**

**Wonder where you're coming from**

**Do you know what you've become?**

**Are you hungry for another one?**

**\- 'Hungry for Another One' by JT Music**

Six was hoping, when she opened her eyes, that she would wake for real this time. After all, she had defeated the villain. The nightmare should be over, shouldn't it?

But when her lids opened, the first thing they saw was the Lady. She lay prostrate, her face turned away, still moaning like a dog who had been kicked. Her mask lay shattered in pieces around her. As Six watched, the Lady lifted a hand as if to shield her naked face. Six felt a stab of disgust. Did she really still care so much for her vanity?

Then a far more potent feeling stabbed her in the gut and she curled inwards, feeling the familiar sting of hunger warp her belly.

Through her haze, she could hear the woman whispering, "No, no, it can't be. Not now. Not today. Why not a year from now? Or a hundred years from now? I've done everything I could to keep this from happening, ever! Why now? What have I done wrong?"

Six began to rise slowly, a hand clamped to her stomach, her teeth gritted.

The Lady turned around, her long hair veiling her face and a hand acting as a shield. She didn't look like she had the strength to move. The arm supporting her trembled and her fingernails tapped against the floor. Six could see the last remnants of her magic fading like smoke.

Six began to inch her way forward. The Hunger didn't come in throbs like before. It pulsed like a living animal inside her, filled with such desire that it was a wonder she didn't lunge forward like a beast. But still, it was a heavy, heavy thing she carried, and so slowly she must go.

Even more than the Hunger was the feeling she had borne with her the entire journey long. It had been quiet at first, but it had grown. Now it hummed within her as restlessly as a volcano, urging her forward, thrumming with an energy she hadn't felt before. A deep greed was seeded in her heart. She wanted, oh how she wanted. She wanted to tear it from the woman's body, to let it fill her to the brim, fill her to bursting! She felt like she could never get enough.

The woman trembled. She was Lady no longer. She could feel that much. A captain could feel when the tides had turned. Through her curtain of hair she could see the creature stumbling towards her, almost drooling at the mouth with desire, and wished she had the strength to run away. But no. The same force that was pulling the girl toward her bound the woman in place. Had the girl not come, the magic would have forced the woman to go.

"Revolting, despicable creature," the woman whispered, but neither could tell whether the insult was meant for the child or herself. "I bound the others with this Hunger, but look what will be the death of me. It is the same."

And she laughed the same callous, unrelenting laugh that she had forced when the monster was only a child holding a looking glass as her only defense against the tyrant. Now the same stood above her, rasping breaths the only sound that came from its cursed mouth.

"Damned creature," spat the woman. "When your time comes as it has come for me, I wish that the depths of hell will swallow you alive. Let joy wither ere it is first sown, and let your powers bring nothing but sorrow. You have stolen everything from me." She felt cold fingers on her neck and shuddered. "So let it be the same for you."

Six bit down. Her teeth latched on to the woman's throat as she struggled, her arms giving way, dragging her to the ground. Another bite released the dark blood, gushing from lacerated veins, soaking into the wooden floorboards, which lapped it up, just as ravenous as the girl. Six's teeth tore at the dying flesh, feeling each quiver fill her mouth, relishing the moment that the woman stopped resisting. Even then she didn't stop, quenching her hunger with the only meat which still remained.

Finally Six stopped, gasping. She turned her eyes upward, not daring to look at what she had done. The magic, a cloud of ashy blackness, hovered over her head as if waiting. One hunger appeased, Six gave in to her other desire. She lifted her arms, welcoming the power inside her. One strand at a time, the darkness began to fill her. Like sand into the bottom half of the hourglass, it sifted into her body, filling her to the brim, and then more. Six could feel the age of several lifetimes enter her bloodstream, could hear the whisper of the ancients in her mind, could almost taste her new power which licked through her like fire. Even though everything inside her screamed that it was too much, still another voice called out for more, more!

She was full, she was bursting. She really couldn't take any more. But like the final bite of an enormous feast, she swallowed it down, holding it all tight inside her and waiting for it all to digest.

But she couldn't wait. Not when the entire world was opened to her! Anything was possible. She reached out a hand and the woman's body melted away into ash. Another gesture and the ceiling was punctured, emitting a misty ray of sunshine from up above.

_What do you want?_ the magic asked. Anything in the world. _What do you want?_

_I want to go to the surface._

_Then to the surface we shall go._

* * *

The guests were still at their tables as Six entered the uppermost hallway, still stuffing food into their faces as if nothing had happened. Six looked on them with disgust as they turned their bloated fingers to her, reaching as if she was just another stick of meat for them to consume. Was it vengeance, or was it mercy when she began to extract the woman's magic from them? All through the Maw, the vulgar creatures that had once been human began to drop like marionettes with their strings cut. Not a single one was left standing.

_Strange_, Six thought as she walked between the tables, the giants falling with her every step. _I always thought that this was my nightmare. I never stopped to consider… this is theirs._

Like a black snake that ran through the river of her veins, the magic thrived. It was her servant, a genie to be called when she had need. Its old mistress had clung to its power, desperately grasping even though her time had long since run out. Now it had a new mistress. It would serve her until her time was up, and then it would find a new one. So it went, and so it had always gone. But for now… for now this youngling had spirit and fire and passion. The magic had almost forgotten what this was like, being trapped behind the desire to persist and maintain. It was satisfying to have a new host, at last.

The long staircase stretched before her and Six peered up at it, her eyes filling with the single ray of sunshine that peered through the great doors at the top. But before she moved a single step, she heard a skittering behind her. All the Nomes she had seen before gathered in humility at the foot of the staircase.

_Meaningless, pathetic things_, the magic whispered, but Six looked deeper. She saw exactly how pathetic these things were: the husks of those children who dared to dream of another way. They were empty. No magic could save them from what they had become. Six simply shook her head, but the Nomes nodded theirs in submission. They knew that her apathy was mercy enough.

Six began to ascend. As she did, the magic quieted, resting as if it knew she had no need of it right then. Her footsteps became lighter as the staircase became brighter. The smell of salt became more and more potent, and then…

Six stood on the crest of the Maw, the floating tomb for the woman and all her people. The cry of gulls were sharp penetrations in the quiet air and Six felt so light she thought she might just fly. The sunlight dappled the waters and the air had never smelled so fresh. For the first time, she realized, she had passed beyond the dream. This was reality. And it could be beautiful.

_What now?_ she inquired of the magic. It ruminated, a quiet rumble in her bones.

_Whatever you want, mistress._

Six nodded slowly as the distant sound of a foghorn heralded a new world.

_Of course._

_Whatever I want._

**The  
****End**

* * *

**A/N: Well, here it is! The final chapter of Greed is out for you all to enjoy. Sorry it took as long as it did. I was planning on having this done by November, but then writer's block hit hard. *Sigh* Ah, well. It is what it is, and the story is done now. I hope you all enjoyed.**

**Before anyone asks, I'm not sure if I'll be posting a sequel to Greed when Little Nightmares 2 comes out. I try to be as considerate as possible to the original content when I write fanfiction, so if Greed doesn't fit in with the canon of Little Nightmares 2, I'll just leave it as a stand alone. **

**Honestly, I don't know what (or when) my next project is going to be. I've been pretty active on my channel on DeviantArt and YouTube (plug plug) so if you want to see more of what I've been up to search for PastSelf. My Little Nightmares videos are up there too so go ahead and treat yourself - check it out! I'm planning on playing Little Nightmares 2 on my channel when it comes out, as well, so just keep that in mind if you get a hankerin' to subscribe.**

**Aaaaand that's it. Thank you guys so much for bearing with me, and for your patience when I was having a hard time writing. You all are so sweet. I had tears in my eyes from your generous comments. Thank you all!**

**See you next time!**


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